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THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



BOOKS BY JOHN R. MOTT 



STRATEGIC POINTS IN THE WORLD'S 
CONQUEST 

THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD 
IN THIS GENERATION 

THE STUDENTS OF NORTH AMERICA 
UNITED 

THE PASTOR AND MODERN MISSIONS 

THE FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE 
CHURCH 

THE DECISIVE HOUR OF CHRISTIAN 
MISSIONS 



THE PRESENT 
WORLD SITUATION 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE DEMANDS 

MADE UPON THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN 

RELATION TO NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS 



BY 

John R. Mott 



New York 

student volunteer movement 

for foreign missions 

1914 






COPYBIGHT, 1914, BY 

STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 
FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 

All rights reserved 



DEC 29 1914 

©CLA388908 



PREFACE 



The object of this book is to show that 
the present world situation — a situation un- 
precedented in opportunity, in danger and in 
urgency — demands from the forces of pure 
Christianity the development and exercise of 
statesmanship, the Christianization of the 
impact of our Western civilization on the 
non-Christian world, a closer and more prac- 
tical co-operation and unity among Chris- 
tians in their missionary tasks, and a far 
larger emphasis on the spiritual side of the 
stupendous undertaking of making Christ 
and His truth known and obeyed among all 
men. 

Before the War broke out the bookwas 
written just as it now appears. That great 
catastrophe, however, lends a peculiar time- 
liness and meaning to the treatment of 
the subject. What a demonstration the War 
has furnished of the contention that the pres- 
ent is a time of unprecedented danger. Who 



vi PREFACE 

will say that the opportunity which is likely 
to confront the cause of Christ at the close 
of the struggle will not be more extensive 
than ever before? Changed conditions and 
greatly aggravated difficulties occasioned by 
the present upheaval will make an added 
call for the highest order of Christian 
statesmanship. What a colossal exhibition 
the War affords of the unchristian char- 
acter of much of our so-called Christian civ- 
ilization, and what a challenge it presents to 
the leaders of vital, Christlike Christianity 
to strive to bring in a new order wherein shall 
dwell righteousness, love and true peace! In 
view of depleted material and human re- 
sources, severely strained international re- 
lations, and broken Christian fellowship 
caused by the War, greatly increased force 
is given to the arguments for co-operation 
and unity. If such a policy were admittedly 
desirable before, it is essential now. Never 
before has there been such general distrust 
of human ability and such wide-spread 
recognition of the need of superhuman wis- 
dom, love and power to meet the world 



PREFACE vii 

situation. Thus, in the midst of so much 
that is changing and uncertain, the call 
is insistent that chief emphasis be placed 
upon the changeless facts and the limitless 
resources associated with the Fountain Head 
of spiritual life and energy — Jesus Christ, the 
same yesterday, to-day and forever. 

Under the auspices of Andover Theological 
Seminary, five of the chapters of this book 
were given as lectures in April, 1914, in San- 
ders Theater at Harvard University, and were 
repeated at the Boston University School of 
Theology. Chapter II is an address deliv- 
ered in January, 1914, at the Convention of 
the Student Volunteer Movement in Kansas 
City. Chapter VII is reproduced, with slight 
changes, from The International Review of 
Missions for April, 1914. 

John R. Mott. 

December, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Present World Situation 3 
II. The Openness and Responsive- 
ness of the Non-Christian 
World 19 

III. The Need for Statesmanship 

in Christian Missions . . 59 

IV. The Unchristian Aspects of the 

Impact of Our Western Civ- 
ilization 97 

V. How the Impact of Our 
Western Civilization may 
be Christianized . . 127 
VI. How to Ensure Closer Co- 
operation and Unity on the 
Part of Christian Forces . 153 

VII. Present Possibilities of Co- 
operation in the Mission 
Field 177 

VIII. Where to Place the Chief 
Emphasis in the Missionary 
Enterprise .... 207 
ix 



THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

The forces of pure Christianity as they face 
the non-Christian nations and peoples are 
confronting an unprecedented world situa- 
tion. Certainly it is unprecedented in op- 
portunity. In this respect there has been 
nothing like it in the annals of the Christian 
faith. There have been times when in a few 
countries the doors to the friendly and con- 
structive mission of Christianity were as wide 
open as they are to-day; but there never was 
a time when simultaneously in so many sec- 
tions of the world the opportunities for the 
extension of the Christian religion were so 
numerous and so extensive as at the present 
time. This is true in the Far East and the 
Near East, in Southern Asia, in the Pacific 
Island world, in nearly all parts of Africa and 
of Latin America. Moreover, so far as one 
can forecast the future, there is not likely to 
come a time when the opportunities will be 

3 



4 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

greater than those with which the Christian 
Church must deal to-day. Where, after 
China, is there another nation of four hun- 
dred millions of people to turn from an an- 
cient past and to swing out into the full 
stream of modern Christian civilization? 
Where after India is there another vast em- 
pire to be swept by the spirit of unrest and 
to be made peculiarly accessible to the recon- 
structive processes of Christianity? Where 
after Africa is there another continent for 
which Mohammedanism and Christianity can 
contend? Where after Turkey and the Nile 
Valley is there another keystone to the vast 
arch of the Mohammedan world, with seams 
of weakness which make possible the dis- 
rupting of the whole structure? 

What lends added significance to the pres- 
ent situation is the fact that this unparalleled 
enlargement of opportunity comes at a time 
when the Christian Church is called upon to 
deal with some of the most difficult problems 
with which it has ever had to grapple on the 
home field. This is true of North America, 
of Western and Northern Europe, of Aus- 



SIGNIFICANCE AND URGENCY 5 

tralasia and South Africa. Why is it that 
at the very time the Christian forces have 
more to do than ever at the home base, they 
are also confronted with an immeasurably 
greater opportunity abroad than that which 
has facied any preceding generation? May 
it not be because God sees that there are now 
on the earth those with whom He can trust 
a situation literally world-wide in its sweep? 
With His all-seeing eye does He not pierce 
beneath the surface and recognize latent in 
the Christians of our day capacities for vision, 
for adventure, for heroism, for statesmanship 
and for vicariousness which, if exercised and 
accompanied by His own superhuman forces, 
make possible the meeting of this absolutely 
new world situation? 

We are living at the most dangerous time 
in the history of the world. This is due to 
the shrinkage of the world caused by the 
greatly improved means of communication. 
In many ways the whole world now is smaller 
than that part of the United States east of 
the Mississippi River was a generation ago. 
It is indeed one great community; it has 



6 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

become a whispering gallery. As a result, the 
nations and races have been brought into 
the most intimate contact. This has led to 
grave perils. One danger is the great multi- 
plication of friction points. Some hoped and 
even believed that this new century might 
be ushered in with universal peace and good- 
will among the nations and races; but more 
than any preceding century has this one 
been characterized by national and racial 
misunderstandings, prejudices, bitterness and 
strife. The mingling of peoples, the clash of 
civilizations, and the processes which char- 
acterize this scientific age have led to marked 
relaxing and weakening of the restraints of 
the social customs as well as the ethical and 
religious systems of non-Christian peoples. 
This is in itself a very grave danger. 

One of the most alarming perils is that 
of the demoralization which takes place 
where two or more races are brought into 
contact without the restraining and trans- 
forming influence of a greater than human 
power. There is something which strange- 
ly yet certainly takes place under such 



SIGNIFICANCE AND URGENCY 7 

conditions — something which tends to draw 
out the worst of each race. Equally true is 
it that the best is called forth when the prin- 
ciples and spirit of vital Christianity are at 
such a time brought to bear on the races 
concerned. How true it is that in a race, as 
in an individual, there are not only heights 
that lay hold of highest heaven but depths 
that lay hold of deepest hell! The worst 
places to be found anywhere on earth are 
those where races have been thrown against 
each other without the presence and mani- 
festation of the superhuman forces of pure 
Christianity. That there is danger also of 
an ever-increasing consolidation of non-Chris- 
tian peoples against the ideals and purposes 
which are most distinctive to the Christian 
religion there can be no question. The fact 
that it is not an organized or formal opposi- 
tion conducted by systematic policy or de- 
sign is all the more significant. 

How may these momentous perils be coun- 
teracted and overcome? Some still appeal 
for a policy of segregation. They say that 
the only hope of averting these alarming 



8 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

dangers is to separate the races from each 
other. Even though such a course might 
have been practicable in other days, it is so 
no longer. It may be possible for countries 
like America, Canada and Australia to ex- 
clude Orientals from their borders, but it is 
not possible in this day of industrial and 
commercial expansion to keep the aggressive 
young men of Europe and America out of 
Asia and Africa. Moreover, the countless 
international contacts which have been es- 
tablished in recent years manifest the abso- 
lute futility of any attempt in this day to 
keep nations and peoples in water-tight com- 
partments. 

Others argue in favor of amalgamation as 
a means of diminishing the dangers which so 
threaten the world. History, as well as pres- 
ent-day experience in certain parts of the 
world, shows that such a course would follow 
the line of least resistance and inevitably 
would be attended with results of the most 
serious character. 

In the judgment of many leaders in dif- 
ferent nations, a policy of military and na- 



SIGNIFICANCE AND URGENCY 9 

val domination is the only hope of making 
the world safe. The late Sir Robert Hart 
showed, at the time of the Boxer uprising, 
that this would require a military establish- 
ment so colossal that it would break down 
the powers of the world to maintain it. This 
also tends to accentuate the very danger 
which we wish to avoid. 

In every quarter of the world many put 
forward education as the secret of ensuring 
the proper well-being of the peoples and of 
good-will among the nations. To-day, as in 
the past, some of the best educated nations 
are those most in danger from these gravest 
perils. Leaders of Japan have expressed 
themselves with solicitude concerning the 
breakdown in character of men in public and 
commercial life. It is not surprising, there- 
fore, that under the auspices of the Govern- 
ment there was held in Japan as recently as 
1911 a conference of leaders of the different 
religions to consider among other things what 
religion can do to strengthen or buttress the 
morals of a nation. Education alone in any 
country merely sharpens a man's weapons 



10 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

and makes him more successful in using them. 
But using them for what, and against what? 
It was said of Lorenzo de Medici, one of the 
great Italian scholars, "He was cultured but 
corrupt; wise but cruel; spending the morn- 
ing writing a sonnet in praise of virtue and 
spending the night in vice." It matters not 
how well educated a man may be, if he goes 
out into the world with a corrupt heart, an 
un governed will and low ideals, he is a men- 
ace to society and a source of weakness to 
the life of his nation. 

What then will afford a helpful environ- 
ment and ensure right feelings and relation- 
ships between nations and races? The only 
program which can meet all the alarming 
facts of the situation is the world-wide spread 
of Christianity in its purest form. In other 
words, this is not a matter of external ar- 
rangements. The disposition of men must 
be changed. Their motive life must be in- 
fluenced. The springs of conduct must be 
touched. Right ideals must be implanted. 
A new spirit must be imparted. All this is 
only tantamount to saying that the influence 



SIGNIFICANCE AND URGENCY 11 

of the life and spirit as well as the principles 
of Jesus Christ, the source of superhuman 
life and energy, must be brought to bear on 
all men individually and upon all their rela- 
tionships. 

The present world situation is unprece- 
dented not only in opportunity and in dan- 
ger, but also in urgency. From the point of 
view of the Christian Church the present mo- 
ment is incomparably the most critical and 
urgent it has ever known. This is true be- 
cause so many nations just now in a plastic 
condition are soon to become set unchange- 
ably. Shall Christian or unchristian influ- 
ences determine their character and destiny? 
The answer to this question cannot be de- 
ferred. To delay by even a half decade 
facing the situation and acting upon it com- 
prehensively would be the most serious mis- 
take which Christian leaders in this genera- 
tion could make. 

The present is a time when rising tides of 
nationalism and racial patriotism are surging 
on every hand. Wherever the world traveler 
may have gone in recent years he has become 



12 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

very conscious of the thrill of a new life. He 
has found nations being reborn; he has ob- 
served peoples coming into their own. This 
growing spirit of nationality and racial patri- 
otism can no more be resisted than can the 
tides of the sea. If Christians show them- 
selves sympathetic with all commendable 
national and racial aspirations of non-Chris- 
tian countries, the progress of Christianity 
throughout the world will be greatly facili- 
tated; if they do not, the mission of the 
Christian religion will be indefinitely retarded. 
The startlingly rapid spread of the corrupt 
influences in our so-called Western civiliza- 
tion among non-Christian peoples constitutes 
another reason for prompt and urgent action 
on the part of the Christian Church. The 
cheek of the visitor from a Christian land 
blushes with shame as he sees in the port 
cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America the 
alarming prevalence of evils which have 
spread from his native land. Some of these 
evils are eating like gangrene into the less 
highly organized races of mankind. Chris- 
tianity has a double responsibility. It must 



SIGNIFICANCE AND URGENCY 13 

counteract these baneful influences wherever 
they have extended and it must preempt 
those regions of the world where these evils 
have not yet reached. Nothing but the 
power of the living Christ can arrest and 
turn back these tides of death. 

On the other hand, the cancerous growths 
of the non-Christian civilizations are eating 
with great directness and deadliness toward 
the very vitals of Christendom. We cannot 
trifle with cancers nor can we safely ignore 
them. Now that the world has found itself 
in its unity as one body (and this is the first 
half generation in which this could be said), 
it can no longer be a matter of indifference 
to one part of the world-body what happens 
in any other part. If there be a plague spot 
in China or Turkey or Africa, sooner or later 
it must affect America, England and Ger- 
many. It would seem that even though a 
man were not a Christian he would believe in 
foreign missions, that is, in the spread of the 
knowledge and life-giving power of the Chris- 
tian religion, solely on grounds of patriotism. 
In these days it is difficult to understand the 



14 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

patriotism of the citizen who does not re- 
gard with responsive sympathy every wise 
effort to release throughout the earth the 
spirit and motives of Christianity. 

There is another dangerous process which 
greatly accentuates the urgency of the pres- 
ent situation — the process of syncretism. 
This would seek to combine certain truths of 
the Christian religion with certain good 
ideas of non-Christian systems of religion or 
ethics, but would leave out the superhuman 
aspects of Christianity. This is tantamount 
to leaving out Christianity itself. More dif- 
ficult to counteract and overcome than the 
non-Christian religions themselves are the 
dangers growing out of eclecticism. Its con- 
fusing, unsettling and paralyzing influence is 
felt not only in the East but also in the West, 
and can be met only by bringing to bear a 
larger number of the strongest and best 
equipped minds of our generation. 

The present situation is immeasurably 
more urgent than that of other days because 
of the recent unparalleled triumphs of C lris- 
tianity. It is a remarkable fact that the 



SIGNIFICANCE AND URGENCY 15 

most extensive victories of Christian missions 
have been those of the recent past. Not even 
in the early days of Christianity were such 
striking results achieved as have accom- 
panied the efforts of Christian missions in 
Asia and Africa during the last decade. 
These victories have been achieved not only 
in the more favored parts of the world where 
the forces and influences of the Christian re- 
ligion are most concentrated, but on some of 
the most difficult battlefields of the Church. 
Unquestionably it is a time of rising spiritual 
tide. It is always wise to take advantage of 
a rising tide. More can be accomplished in 
a short time under such circumstances than 
in long, weary, discouraging periods of effort 
while the tide is falling. God seems to have 
done a hundred. years' work within the last 
five years. The Christians of the West must 
quicken their pace. The discerning traveler 
returning from journeys in the Eastern world 
to-day must be constrained to confess solici- 
tude, not lest the peoples of the East fail to 
recer . j Christ, but lest the Christians of the 
Wf*it lose Christ as a result of not passing 



16 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

on the knowledge of Him. The Christians 
now living in Western lands should have a 
realizing sense that this present, unparalleled 
world situation affords not only the greatest 
opportunity the Church has ever known, but 
also, so far as they are concerned, their best 
and their only opportunity. 

The work which centuries might have done 
Must crowd the hour of setting sun. 



THE OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVE- 
NESS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN 
WORLD 



II 

THE OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVE- 
NESS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN 
WORLD 

There are many and multiplying evidences 
that the peoples of non-Christian lands are 
peculiarly accessible and responsive to the 
message and the messengers of vital Chris- 
tianity. Facts could be massed showing how 
true this is with reference to the masses in 
nearly all parts of Asia and Africa, not to 
mention other sections of the non-Christian 
world. Possibly even more significant, how- 
ever, are the facts indicating the attitude of 
the educated classes toward Christ and His 
claims. For the present, therefore, I con- 
fine myself to relating certain experiences and 
recording impressions in connection with my 
recent journeys in the Near East and the Far 
East. In order to make more clear the 
marked change which has taken place, I shall 
follow the plan of contrasting these late ex- 

19 



20 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

periences and observations with those re- 
lated to my visits to the same lands half a 
generation ago. The experiences and testi- 
mony of countless other travelers, as well as 
of workers residing in the different fields, 
would tend to enforce greatly the conviction 
that at the present time there exists through- 
out the non-Christian world an unexampled 
desire to know the truth of Christ and 
readiness to respond to the Christian ap- 
peal. 

On my first visit to Russia, about fifteen 
years ago, it was impossible to gain access 
to the educated classes of that great Empire. 
At that time had I been found in a street car 
with five Russian students, all of us would 
have been subject to arrest. The meetings 
were necessarily held in secret, between mid- 
night and four o'clock in the morning. Were 
I to visit Russia again under these circum- 
stances, I would not follow such a course — 
not because of personal peril, but because of 
the risk involved for others. During that 
visit, I delivered only one public address, 
and that in the British-American Chapel in 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 21 

St. Petersburg. I was warned that even 
there spies would be present, and it caused 
me not a little perplexity to choose a subject 
on which I could safely speak. At last the 
topic " Secret Prayer," was selected. Had 
I spoken on any theme bearing upon organi- 
zation, association, international relations, or 
propaganda, it would have ended all my ef- 
forts then and there, and seriously embar- 
rassed the work of others who were in sym- 
pathy with the object of gaining access to 
the Russian students for the work of Christ. 
In striking contrast with this experience 
was that of my last visit to Russia, when I 
was given the largest freedom to conduct 
public evangelistic campaigns among the 
students and other educated classes in some 
of the principal cities. It was necessary to 
secure the largest halls in these centers to 
hold the multitudes of students. All the 
meetings, as was customary, were open to 
both men and women students; for in that 
land the students of both sexes insist on hav- 
ing everything in common. The women were 
present even at meetings where purity and 



22 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

sex questions were discussed, maintaining, 
to use the expression of one of their number, 
"We have been going to the bad together; 
why should we not learn to climb the heights 
together." Admission to the meetings was 
by ticket, and a charge was made in order 
that the students might accumulate a fund 
with which to help fellow students who were 
in dire need. As a rule these large halls 
and theaters were crowded. The police 
allowed no one to stand in the aisles, but 
students were permitted to stand in the 
large area in front of the stage. 

Never shall I forget those seas of Russian 
faces extending from the stage where I stood, 
back over the crowded area and to the upper- 
most gallery. Most of the faces bore the 
mark of tragedy, and the word tragedy is 
used advisedly, for that Russian student is 
an exception who does not know its meaning, 
either through his own personal experience 
or that of some member of his family. Those 
who best know the inner life of Russian 
students say that a majority of them have 
contemplated suicide. Indeed, more students 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 23 

commit suicide each year in Russia than 
in all other countries combined. Each 
meeting lasted about three hours. Every 
word had to be spoken through an inter- 
preter. Usually I gave two or three addresses 
in succession, pausing a few moments be- 
tween the two principal addresses, during 
which interval the students, as is their cus- 
tom, drank tea and discussed the points of 
the address. As the meeting drew to a 
close, it was always difficult to get the other 
students to leave in order that we might 
come into closer and more helpful relation to 
those who were ready to become serious in- 
quirers. 

Nearly all the students of Russia are 
agnostics. They are, as the Germans would 
say, confessionslos. Though they are without 
religion, they are, however, the most religious 
students I have ever met, unless it be those 
of India. They have a thirst to find religious 
truth and to experience its power. In every 
city large numbers of them became sincere 
inquirers. They listened with that intensity 
which fairly draws out one's soul. They not 

3 



24 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

only remained after the addresses to receive 
personal counsel and direction as to how to 
find Christ, but they also sought me out on 
all possible occasions. Though they did not 
know the English language and though I did 
not know Russian, they would follow me as 
I walked along the streets or rode in the 
street cars. They came to my hotel at an- 
nounced hours for interviews, and at periods 
when I had indicated that I wished to be left 
alone. They seemed to think that if they 
could draw near me, as the messenger of the 
Christian students of other lands, they might 
find something to quench their thirst to know 
the truth. 

Bands of investigators of Christ and His 
teachings were left in each center. In some 
cases the number of inquirers was so great 
that proper provision could not be made for 
them. In one university center the evening 
before the day of my departure, I said to the 
audience, "All those present who would like 
to learn how to follow Christ as I have 
been setting Him forth, meet me in this hall 
at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon." A dif- 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 25 

ficult hour had purposely been chosen in 
order that there might be a more searching 
test. To the amazement of all, literally hun- 
dreds came to this special meeting — a meet- 
ing of such intensity as characterizes gather- 
ings where there are present only those who 
are in dead earnest to discover and follow 
the truth. Nearly all of the large number 
who came decided heroically to become in- 
vestigators. Then I had that most trying ex- 
perience of having to leave these hundreds of 
true inquirers alone, without sympathetic and 
wise guides, for we had no Christian Student 
Movement or expert Christian leaders to 
whom to entrust them. Baron Nicolay, Miss 
Ruth Rouse, Mr. Sherwood Eddy and others 
have had similar experiences within the last 
few years. 

These encouraging beginnings have been 
followed by the establishment of scores of 
Bible classes or circles. Student Christian 
Associations have been developed at the prin- 
cipal student centers, and in some cases their 
work has become so extensive as to necessi- 
tate securing and conducting foyers, that 



26 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

is, suites of rooms properly equipped for the 
social and religious activities of the society. 
Many valuable apologetic books and pam- 
phlets have been issued and are being widely 
purchased and read by the students. Con- 
ferences of Christian leaders and workers are 
being conducted from year to year. Several 
very able Russian and foreign secretaries are 
devoting their entire time to the leadership 
of the work. In some cases the Government 
has granted statutes to the newly formed 
Student Christian Associations. Most won- 
derful of all, in June, 1913, this new Chris- 
tian Movement in the universities of Russia, 
made up so largely of members of the Rus- 
sian Orthodox Church, was received into the 
World's Student Christian Federation. 

Colonel Roosevelt, while President, wrote 
me a letter to be read to the Russian students, 
and in it made the statement that, "No land 
more than Russia holds the fate of the coming 
years." Certainly there are many facts in 
support of this opinion. The Russian Em- 
pire stretches from ocean to ocean in that 
zone of power where we find such nations as 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 27 

Britain, Germany, France, United States, 
Canada, Japan and China. It possesses 
more extensive undeveloped material re- 
sources than any other land, not excepting 
Canada and China. It blends the strong 
strains of Europe and Asia. Within its 
borders are found in strength those three 
great religions, Christianity, Judaism and 
Mohammedanism. Its people possess capac- 
ities for creative and constructive achieve- 
ment, as well as for heroism and suffering, 
which unquestionably mark them out for a 
great work in the world. 

In the autumn of 1895, at the time of my 
first visit to Turkey, I tried in vain to get 
access to the Mohammedan students in Con- 
stantinople. When we started to go on 
board our ship to proceed toward India, we 
heard the firing of the rifles as Armenians 
were being shot down in the streets. We 
were told on good authority that during the 
few days we were there hundreds of them 
had stones tied to their necks and were sunk 
in the Bosphorus, because they had had the 
courage to think aloud, or to associate with 



28 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

others who thus publicly expressed their 
opinions. Wherever I went in Turkey that 
year, I found the door to the Moslem stu- 
dents closed, and was obliged to confine my 
efforts to work among Christians in the mis- 
sion schools and colleges. Even such work 
had to be conducted in the most quiet man- 
ner. 

Three years ago I revisited Turkey. The 
contrast in the experiences of the two visits 
seems almost incredible. On this last visit 
I went to Constantinople to help organize, 
at the gateway of the political capital of the 
Mohammedan world, a conference of the 
World's Student Christian Federation. Plans 
were explained frankly and fully to the gov- 
ernment authorities, and not the slightest 
obstacle was placed in the way. The Con- 
ference was attended by leaders of the Chris- 
tian forces among students from twenty-five 
different nations. Although the number of 
delegates was limited to about two hundred, 
there were represented among them over 
fifty branches of Protestantism. Besides 
these there came Coptic Christians from the 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 29 

Nile Valley, Syrian Christians from the Leba- 
non and from India, Maronite and Roman 
Catholic Christians from different fields. One 
of the strongest delegations was that of Rus- 
sia, which included several members of the 
Orthodox Church. The other autonomous 
Greek Churches of Bulgaria, Servia, Ruma- 
nia and Greece were represented. Two Bish- 
ops of the Greek communities in Turkey at- 
tended, and the Ecumenical Patriarch him- 
self manifested the deepest interest in the 
Conference, and furthered its plans. The Ar- 
menian or Gregorian Church, which through 
its faithful witness for centuries had earned 
its right to join in such a gathering, was rep- 
resented by several of its members. 

This most representative conference of all 
branches of Christendom was permitted to 
carry forward its discussions in the most 
open manner. Its speakers and members 
did not apologize for their religion. They 
rjet forth constructively the meaning of Chris- 
tianity and its world program. In addi- 
tion to the regular conference sessions, there 
were held every night in the six largest halls 



30 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

obtainable in different parts of Stamboul 
and Pera, meetings for the educated and in- 
fluential classes — in one hall in the Armenian 
language, in one in Turkish, in another in 
German, in two places in French, and in still 
another in English. In these meetings pow- 
erful apologetic lectures and persuasive evan- 
gelistic appeals were given by professors and 
Christian workers from Germany, Britain 
and America, and their more formal ad- 
dresses were confirmed by testimonies given 
by delegates from Europe, Asia and North 
America. The halls were, thronged by Mos- 
lems and Jews, as well as by members of the 
Eastern Churches. 

Shortly before the time for my departure 
from Constantinople a deputation waited 
upon me and urged me to hold before 
leaving at least one meeting near the great 
Moslem University in Stamboul with its 
eight thousand students. As my time was 
very limited, I had to assign for the purpose 
a somewhat unsatisfactory hour on the last 
evening of my visit. A large hall in the 
vicinity of the University was secured, and 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 31 

when I arrived to give my address, I found 
the hall packed to suffocation — not only 
every seat and standing place being taken, 
even on the platform, but also in the hallways 
and neighboring rooms within the range of 
the sound of my voice. When I reached the 
place where I could see the audience, I noticed 
that many present wore green turbans. The 
interpreter told me that these were the most 
fanatical of the Mohammedan theological 
students. I feared there might be serious 
difficulty, for my theme held up Jesus Christ 
as the only Savior, but in no land have I had 
more intense and respectful attention. At 
the close of the address, although I wished to 
hasten away to meet another very late ap- 
pointment, I was held for nearly an hour by 
eager inquirers who pressed upon me with 
their questions which involved spiritual issues 
of life and death. So profoundly was I im- 
pressed with the ripeness of this critically im- 
portant field, that I have since done all I 
could to facilitate the sending to these stu- 
dents of other Christian messengers. Leading 
apologetic lecturers and evangelists, such as 



32 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Professor Allier of Paris, Mr. Sherwood Eddy 
and Mr. Robert Wilder, have, during the 
last three years, had still more remarkable 
experiences among them. In other student 
centers of Turkey there have been similar 
evidences of the marked widening of oppor- 
tunity among Moslems. 

It is true that in the more recent past a 
serious reaction has set in. Many facts of a 
discouraging nature might be given, but 
against the most unfavorable considerations 
and circumstances there should be set in con- 
trast certain facts which did not exist at the 
time of my first visit nearly twenty years ago. 
For example, it is now possible for Christians 
to travel freely in all parts of the Empire. 
Christian conferences and conventions may 
now be held. Scores of periodicals are now 
published which were not then permitted, 
and an increasing volume of Christian litera- 
ture is being circulated and read. Public 
evangelistic meetings may be held in nearly 
every important center, and Mohammedans 
may freely attend them. More wonderful 
still, Christian organizations of students and 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 33 

other classes may now be formed, and not 
infrequently Mohammedans identify them- 
selves with these as members. Within a year 
the Christian Student Movement, embracing 
both men's and women's sections, has been 
perfected and related to similar movements in 
other lands. Facts like these far more than 
counterbalance the most adverse and dis- 
appointing aspects of the present situation, 
and clearly show that within half a generation 
truly marvelous progress has been made. 
It isjiot without its advantages that the ad- 
vance of the cause of Christ in Turkey is 
attended with very great difficulties. It re- 
quires fiery trials to test men and to strengthen 
them. Church history proves that Chris- 
tianity advances best in the face of opposi- 
tion. This is the ground of confidence that 
the Christian religion in its most vital form 
is destined soon to achieve in Turkey even 
more notable victories. 

On my first visit to North Africa about 
twenty years ago it proved to be impracti- 
cable to gain access to Mohammedan stu- 
dents in Cairo, the great educational capital 



34 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

of the Moslem world. I had to confine 
my efforts in Egypt to meetings with the 
Coptic and Protestant Christian students. 
Returning to that land three years ago, I 
raised the question whether I might not give 
lectures on the power and claims of Christ to 
the Moslem and other Egyptian students. 
Representatives of Government and even 
some of the missionaries, while admitting 
that such meetings might be held, advised 
against holding them on the ground that they 
might stir up the spirit of fanaticism. Some 
of the more sympathetic Christian leaders 
were amazed at the plan proposed, which was 
to secure for the meetings the Abbas Theater, 
the largest in Egypt. As a theatrical com- 
pany had engaged the place for each night, 
it was necessary to hold our meetings at a 
very unfavorable hour in the afternoon fol- 
lowing the university work of the day. Not- 
withstanding this fact, the large theater, 
which accommodates twenty-five hundred, 
was overcrowded every afternoon, and after 
the first day it became necessary to have the 
help of the police to control the crowds of 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 35 

students on the outside who were striving to 
gain admittance. 

Day after day I sought to set forth, posi- 
tively and without equivocation, the truth 
as it is found in Christ, but without making 
any attack upon Mohammedanism. Atten- 
tion was fixed upon the living Christ. On 
the last afternoon, when the time came to 
give up the theater because of the play, I had 
not finished, and observing the close and 
solemn attention of the multitude present, I 
felt that I could not leave them without 
leading them further into the truth. The 
audience was composed largely of Moham- 
medan students and unbelievers from the 
government colleges. I put to them this in- 
vitation: " Those of you who would like to 
believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, if you 
could do so with intellectual honesty, meet 
me as soon as possible at the hall of the 
American Mission." Hastening through the 
crowded Cairo streets to the appointed place 
I found, to my surprise, the hall filled with 
students who had come in response to this 
invitation. There we spent a momentous 



36 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

hour — an hour such as men have when none 
are present through idle curiosity, but be- 
cause of an earnest and sincere desire to re- 
ceive help greater than their own. We had 
indubitable evidences of the presence and 
working of the Spirit of Almighty God. Dis- 
cussions conducted by such skilful Christian 
workers as Mr. W. H. T. Gairdner and Dr. 
S. M. Zwemer during the last year, show 
that the inviting door of this intellectual 
Mohammedan center is still wide open. 

My first visit to the student field of India 
lasted through the four months of the cold 
season of 1895-96. Conferences and public 
meetings were held in all the university 
cities. These resulted in the formation of 
several Christian Associations. In connec- 
tion with the evangelistic meetings only a 
few Hindu and Mohammedan students were 
led to become investigators of Christianity; 
none of them, I think, confessed Christ dur- 
ing my visit, although it was a source of joy 
to learn that two or three subsequently be- 
came Christians. Even these small begin- 
nings in that most difficult student field of 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 37 

the world, the home of non-Christian relig- 
ions, sent me on my way greatly encouraged. 
On my return to India with Mr. Sherwood 
Eddy two years ago, I found a vastly enlarged 
opportunity. Again the tour embraced the 
five great university centers — Madras, Bom- 
bay, Lahore, Allahabad and Calcutta. In 
every place the largest theater or hall we 
could obtain was filled to overflowing with 
students. Here were audiences of crowded 
ranks of Hindus, Mohammedans, Buddhists, 
Parsees, as well as agnostics and adherents 
of various eclectic systems. Little bands of 
Christians were scattered among them. 
Every meeting constituted a conflict so great 
that at its close we went away completely 
exhausted. In Madras one Sunday afternoon 
it seemed as if everything were going against 
us. Many were hissing at the mention of the 
name of Christ. Groups of students had 
stationed themselves in different parts of the 
room to create disturbance and thus break up 
the meeting. At a critical stage I noticed 
several men leave the meeting and feared 
that the break-up of the meeting was im- 



38 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

minent. But in a few moments there came a 
hush upon the vast, tumultuous assembly, 
and, as Christ the living Lord was exalted 
in the closing appeal, one was distinctly con- 
scious that His Spirit was moving mightily 
upon the consciences and hearts of men. 
Some months later we learned the secret of 
the marked manifestation of superhuman 
power. Those who had gone out of the meet- 
ing were some earnest Christian students 
who went behind the stage and fell upon 
their faces before God in fervent interces- 
sion. Then we understood that Christ had 
again stilled the tempest. 

During the absorbing series of evangelistic 
campaigns in those few crowded weeks, hun- 
dreds of the keenest students of non-Chris- 
tian faiths decided to make a study of Christ 
and His teachings. This does not mean that 
they became converts. It does mean, how- 
ever, that they determined to investigate the 
claims of Christ, and this with an openness of 
mind and a sincerity of purpose which, when 
all the difficulties that surround them are 
taken into consideration, puts to shame the 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 39 

indifferent, easy-going and cynical students 
in favored Western lands. Here and there a 
few individuals among all these investigators 
have since made an open profession by 
baptism. At the close of our tour in India 
a conference of Christian students from 
seventy colleges of all parts of India and 
Ceylon was held at Serampore, the scene 
of William Carey's remarkable labors. One 
evening at dusk Bishop Azariah, who, on the 
preceding Sunday in St. Paul's Cathedral, 
Calcutta, had been consecrated as the first 
Indian Bishop, baptized two Indian students 
who had become inquirers in our meetings in 
Calcutta. This took place in the Hooghly 
River at the very spot where a hundred years 
before, William Carey, after seven years of 
service, had baptized his first low-caste con- 
vert. It means far more for a few Hindus 
and Mohammedans in India to take such a 
step than it would for a thousand agnostics 
in the great universities of America or Eu- 
rope to make a public profession of faith in 
Christ. 
All over India to-day, not simply scores 

4 



40 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

or hundreds but thousands of the educated 
classes are secret inquirers. They have been 
intellectually convinced and their hearts 
have been deeply moved, as a result of the 
faithful and self-denying work of the mis- 
sionaries. What is needed is the additional 
impulse which will come when the Church 
of the West recovers and utilizes the gift of 
intercession. The time is at hand in the 
Indian Empire to secure great results from 
the siege work which has been going on there 
for so many years. This siege work has been 
beyond all praise. We should thank God 
for workers with that highest type of heroism 
which is willing to live and, if need be, to 
die doing siege work. Such workers are as 
much to be honored and envied as are those 
who actually see the walls fall. The Japanese 
who did the mining and countermining at 
Port Arthur as truly helped to achieve the 
wonderful victory as did those who finally 
swept into the fortress. 

Buddhism in its purest and most aggres- 
sive form is found in Burma and Ceylon. It 
means much, therefore, that both in Ran- 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 41 

goon and in Colombo, the principal student 
centers of these two fascinating countries, 
the largest halls were required to hold the 
Buddhist students who came together to 
listen to addresses setting forth the unique 
sufficiency of Christ to meet the deepest 
needs of men and nations. In these places, 
as in the Indian cities, hundreds were led 
to form the purpose to study Christ and 
to obey His truth. Several of their number 
have since pressed on to baptism. There 
seems to be no limit to the range of oppor- 
tunity for wise evangelistic effort in these 
fields. When one remembers the heroic la- 
bors and sacrifices of the early and later 
missionaries in Burma, one understands how 
unprecedented modern ingatherings have 
been made possible. Ceylon presents a pe- 
culiar appeal to the imagination and to sac- 
rificing devotion. It is inspiring to recall 
that centuries ago, from this little island as 
a fountain head and propagating center of 
Buddhism, there went forth thousands of 
Buddhist missionaries to storm the entire 
Asiatic coast. Their missionary zeal goes 



42 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

far to explain the fact that Buddhism to-day 
has more adherents than has any other re- 
ligion. 

On the occasion of my first journey around 
the world, I did not visit Korea, because at 
that time it had no students in the modern 
sense. This was also true at the time of my 
second world tour. When I went for the 
third time to the Far East, a brief visit was 
made to the capital, Seoul, in connection with 
which a memorable gathering of thousands of 
the most influential classes of Korean men 
was held in Independence Hall outside the 
city wall. The results achieved by the Holy 
Spirit that winter afternoon, when over two 
hundred strong men accepted Christ, con- 
stituted in itself a^ convincing evidence of 
Christianity, and revealed the marvelous 
character of the opportunity in Korea. On 
returning to the country nearly two years 
ago, although it was not regarded by many as 
a favorable time owing to strained relations 
between the races, I expressed the desire to 
have opportunity to proclaim the message 
of Christ to the more progressive classes of 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 43 

Koreans. A large tent to accommodate three 
thousand was pitched for the purpose, and 
night after night it was densely crowded with 
the very men we most desired to reach. 
The last of these meetings continued for 
three hours, and after the workers had liter- 
ally driven away all save those who had 
signed cards indicating that they were serious 
inquirers, three hundred of these noble and 
lovable Korean men confessed their alle- 
giance to Christ in the most heroic manner. 
While there has recently come a time of 
severe testing in this land — an experience 
never without its great refining and strength- 
ening influence — the fact should not be lost 
sight of that the doors of Korea are still wide 
open. Beyond question this can be made a 
Christian nation if the Christian Church con- 
tinues to make the most of its advantage. I 
came away from Korea believing that if Chris- 
tianity were to die out in America and Eu- 
rope, it exists with such vitality in Korea 
that it would ultimately spread from there 
to our shores and reestablish itself. 

When I first visited Japan in 1896-97, I 



44 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

met with a good reception and helped to 
plant the Christian Student Movement both 
in government and in missionary colleges. 
During a period of three months filled with 
meetings, some two hundred Japanese stu- 
dents were led to become inquirers. Similar 
encouragement attended a second visit near- 
ly five years later. My third visit was made 
in connection with the Conference of the 
World's Student Christian Federation in 
1907. At that time international deputa- 
tions of Christian leaders preached the Gos- 
pel to the educated classes in virtually every 
student community of the Empire, and large 
numbers were led to become Christian dis- 
ciples. Many wondered whether there would 
ever recur such an opportunity, but last year 
the doors were found to be even wider open 
than ever. Wherever I went the halls and 
churches were overcrowded with eager lis- 
teners, and seldom was a meeting held in 
which less than a hundred and fifty students 
decided to become inquirers. A larger pro- 
portion of those present at the different 
meetings became inquirers than in similar 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 45 

meetings held among the educated classes in 
any other land. 

Someone asked me to mention the most 
remarkable single experience of my recent 
tour throughout the Orient and I answered 
that, were one to judge by the character of 
the difficulties overcome, by the maturity 
and intelligence of those influenced, and by 
the proportion of persons who were reached, I 
would mention the meeting held the last 
night of the visit in Tokyo. It took place 
in the Canadian Mission Tabernacle, because 
that was the largest available hall in the 
vicinity of the Imperial University. Every 
place was taken, chiefly by students of the 
University and the First Koto Gakko. As 
is generally known, the Imperial University 
is the keystone of the Japanese educational 
arch and one of the most influential univer- 
sities in the world. It has over five thou- 
sand students, and these in the West would 
be characterized as graduate students. Their 
average age must be at least twenty-five. 
Nearly all of the professors are men of marked 
attainments who have taken degrees in 



46 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

American or European universities. The in- 
fluence of this institution is felt throughout 
the Asiatic world and is increasingly recog- 
nized in the West. In the meeting that 
night, lasting four hours, I gave through an 
interpreter four addresses. At the close 370 
men, a large proportion of whom were 
among the most mature and advanced stu- 
dents, indicated their purpose to study the 
original writings of Christianity, to pray for 
wisdom and courage to discover and obey 
the truth, and, when convinced of the truth, 
to follow Christ. This stands out as another 
evidence that Christ lives and is able to 
manifest Himself and to overcome language 
difficulties, intellectual pride and racial mis- 
understandings. If He be lifted up, He 
draws men, whether they are educated or 
illiterate, whether they are in the East or in 
the West. 

When I first visited China, in the year 
1896, 1 became deeply interested in the prob- 
lem of reaching the literati, the ancient and 
influential scholar class from whose ranks 
for two thousand years had come the leaders 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 47 

of the nation. When the question was raised 
as to whether I might not gain access to the 
literati, missionaries told me that we would 
never live to see the day when they would 
be accessible to Christian effort. In report- 
ing on^the student field of China at that time, 
therefore, I characterized the Chinese literati 
as the Gibraltar of the student world, by 
which was meant an impregnable position. 
Five years later, on revisiting the country, 
a long day was spent with the presidents of 
seventeen missionary colleges discussing the 
problem of reaching the literati. At last we 
came to the reluctant conclusion that all that 
could be done would be to cultivate here and 
there personal relations with these scholars 
in their homes, and also once a year to stand 
at the gates where the scholars stream out 
at the end of their examinations and hand to 
them Christian literature. As for assembling 
the literati and thus having opportunity to 
influence them collectively or to draw them 
into any organization, that was deemed to 
be quite hopeless. 

Again, five years later still, as I traveled 



48 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

over the Chinese Empire, I found that the 
walls of Jericho had begun to crumble. In 
some places I could look through, and here 
and there I could reach through and clasp 
hands with those splendid representatives 
of educated China, both the ancient and 
modern literati. In exceptional cases it was 
possible to bring them together in meetings 
where I could appeal to them on behalf of 
Christ. In contrast with all this, even these 
promising beginnings, stand the almost un- 
believable incidents connected with the visit 
made last year. 

When I reached Hongkong a deputation 
from Canton met me and stated that they 
had hired the largest theater in the country, 
a building holding thirty-five hundred people, 
for the student mass meetings to be held in 
that gateway city of South China. When 
I asked them why they had not arranged to 
begin the work in a smaller hall they chal- 
lenged me to wait and see. On going to the 
appointed place before the advertised hour 
for the opening meeting, the streets adjoining 
the theater were found thronged with stu- 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 49 

dents, and we were told that every place in 
the theater was already taken. On the plat- 
form were seated some fifty leading Chinese 
officials of the Province, most of whom had 
studied in Japan or America. They had 
come to show in the most conspicuous way 
their sympathy with the purpose of the 
meetings. One night the chair was taken by 
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, an- 
other night by the Premier, and the next 
night by the Commissioner of Education. 
Each evening I gave two or three extended 
addresses, the meetings lasting three hours 
and a half. Over seven hundred students 
and teachers became inquirers, one-fourth of 
whom have been baptized and have been re- 
ceived into the Churches, a larger proportion 
than usually take this step in connection with 
similar efforts in universities of the West. 

The next campaign took place at Tsinanfu, 
the capital of the Shantung Province, the 
Sacred Province of Confucius and Mencius. 
In this most conservative part of China the 
living God manifested His presence and 
power. The Governor of the Province, who 



50 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

was not a Christian, granted the use of the 
Parliament building for the evangelistic meet- 
ings. As it was not equipped for lighting, we 
met in the afternoons. Although here as in 
the other centers the audiences were very- 
large and representative, conditions were 
peculiarly difficult. It was noteworthy, 
therefore, that at the end of the final 
meeting, notwithstanding very adverse cir- 
cumstances, over five hundred men had an- 
nounced their purpose to become investiga- 
tors of Christian truth. The meeting had 
lasted long and night was falling. Per- 
mission was given to bring in a few can- 
dles. It was deeply impressive to see the 
faces of these stalwart leaders of the new 
China as they rose in covenant and bowed 
themselves for the first time before the 
Jehovah of the Bible. When, exhausted, I 
went to my room that night I marveled at 
the unmistakable proof of God's living power, 
but could not understand it until I recalled 
the fact that this very Sunday was the 
Universal Day of Prayer for Students, and 
that in over forty countries earnest bands 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 51 

of Christian students were remembering in 
special prayer this campaign, as well as the 
work of Christ among students in other 
lands. 

In Peking a Buddhist temple had been 
secured and enlarged so that it would ac- 
commodate three thousand. Although the 
weather was bitterly cold the students and 
teachers came long distances from the col- 
leges in all parts of the great city and packed 
the place. Here some six hundred or more 
were influenced to start in the path for the 
discovery of Christ. They were subjected to 
a hard test when they were asked to assemble 
in the Association building, three miles dis- 
tant, for a farewell meeting; but among those 
who came four hundred indicated their def- 
inite acceptance of Christ as their personal 
Lord and Savior. 

While I was in Peking, the Scotch, Irish 
and Danish missionaries of Manchuria came 
to tell me that I would make a great mistake 
were I to leave China without visiting Muk- 
den, the capital of that Province. Not with- 
out difficulty, adjustments were made in my 



52 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

program which enabled me to spend a 
week-end there. The Governor, a member 
of the ancient literati class and not a Chris- 
tian, learning of the intended visit, said that 
Mukden had no hall large enough to hold the 
government students who should attend 
these lectures on Christianity. When this 
word was reported to me I telegraphed the 
committee in Mukden to erect a large pavil- 
ion. The Governor hearing of this said, "We 
will not let this gentleman and his friends 
build the pavilion — I will build it." From 
his private means he gave the money to 
erect a structure which would hold five thou- 
sand. He then ordered that the colleges be 
closed, and that the students and professors 
attend the meetings. They came in such 
numbers that the place was filled to its outer 
limits, every seat and standing place being 
occupied. At each meeting I gave three 
evangelistic addresses, and by the end of 
the series, six hundred had signed cards 
making the three following promises: 

(1) I will make a conscientious study of the 
four Gospels; and, that I may do this to the best 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 53 

advantage, I will meet for one hour each week with 
others who are making the same investigation. 

(2) I will pray daily to the holy God for wis- 
dom to find the truth, and for courage to follow it 
after I have discovered it. 

(3) When my reason and conscience permit me 
to do so, I will take Christ as my Savior and Lord. 

They were not given opportunity to sign 
the cards until after I had spent over half 
an hour in explaining several times the mean- 
ing of these three promises. As I was giving 
the inquirers some parting instructions, the 
Commissioner of Education of the Province, 
who had a seat on the platform through- 
out all the meetings, rose and asked the priv- 
ilege of speaking to the inquirers. As he was 
not a Christian, I was surprised when the in- 
terpreter told me that he had earnestly ex- 
horted them to keep the three promises, and 
had expressed the hope that were I to re- 
visit Manchuria I would not find that any 
of them had turned their backs upon their 
resolutions. 

While I was having these striking ex- 
periences in Canton, Tsinanfu, Peking and 



54 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Mukden, Mr. Sherwood Eddy had quite as 
noteworthy results in other cities; in fact, it 
may be questioned whether there have ever 
been such fruitful evangelistic efforts among 
students in China as those put forth in 
Tientsin and Foochow. Mr. Eddy is at the 
present time contemplating the conduct of 
a far more extensive campaign throughout 
China, and, great as was the opportunity 
last year, it seems likely to be far greater 
this year. 

Facts such as those here set forth could be 
greatly multiplied not only with reference to 
the countries touched in this review and con- 
trast but also regarding many other parts of 
the wide world field. They demonstrate that 
the cause of the Christian religion is entering 
upon a new age. Old things are passing 
away; all things are becoming new. The 
non-Christian nations are indeed wide open. 
They are more accessible than ever. Their 
fields are dead ripe. They are ready for the 
sickle. The time has come to reap on a scale 
which transcends anything hitherto at- 
tempted. The plans of the Kingdom must be 



OPENNESS AND RESPONSIVENESS 55 

greatly widened. The leaders of the aggres- 
sive forces of the Christian religion must 
grapple with the present marvelous world 
situation in a truly statesmanlike way, and 
in complete reliance on their superhuman re- 
sources. 



THE NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP IN 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



Ill 

THE NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP IN 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 

A writer in the London Spectator stimu- 
lates profitable reflection by expressing the 
opinion that there is "one feature in the 
present aspect of the world which is most 
unusual, and that is the contrast between the 
magnitude of events occurring all around us, 
and the smallness, or rather, the second- 
rateness of the men supposed to guide them." 
The question thus raised might well be con- 
sidered in every calling and in every country. 
While the great enterprise of the world-wide 
extension of Christianity has afforded pos- 
sibly as many illustrations of able leadership 
and true statesmanship as any other sphere 
of human activity, there is no doubt that 
there is to-day a demand for a far larger 
exercise of these gifts. 

Statesmen are needed in the sphere of 
Christian missions in order to enlarge the 



60 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

plans. The enormous widening of oppor- 
tunity which has come in recent years on 
almost every mission field calls for a great 
enlargement of the plans of occupation. 
Within a few years literally hundreds of 
millions of people have been brought within 
easy reach of the forces of Christianity. The 
same improved means of communication 
which have accomplished this result have 
likewise exposed multitudes to the evil in- 
fluences of Western civilization and have 
facilitated the further spread of the non- 
Christian religions. Statesmanlike planning 
is essential if the Church is to measure up to 
an opportunity unmatched in all her history. 
The great growth of the missionary movement 
itself calls for both expansion and adaptation. 
The Christian Church has far greater num- 
bers now than a generation ago; likewise 
many more points of contact and avenues 
of influence with non-Christian peoples, and 
therefore vastly greater forces are to be 
wielded. The stupendous changes, political, 
social, economic and educational, which 
have taken place in non-Christian countries 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 61 

make wise and necessary a revision of plans 
in nearly every field. Many believe the 
hour has struck for a truly universal mis- 
sionary activity. The policy for such an 
age as ours must be imperial to be truly 
Christian. In the terms of the world, the 
work of Christian missions is empire building, 
and demands imperial ideas and resources. 
The larger plans so imperatively demanded 
should also reach much further into the 
future. Few Churches and Missions are 
planning their work with reference to the 
inevitable demands of even the next ten 
years. Missionary policy has been influenced 
far too much by emergencies and sudden 
crises, and not sufficiently by the far view. 

There is need also of statesmanlike leader- 
ship in order to improve missionary strategy, 
for here also there is a painful lack. When 
there is so much to do a paramount question 
is: Where at the present moment is the 
strengthening of the missionary force most 
important and most urgently required? 
Where the greatest battle is to be fought, 
there the greatest force should be concen- 



62 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

trated. One such field is obviously that part 
of Africa where we are witnessing the most 
vigorous Moslem advance. In each mission 
field there is need of restudying the question 
of the wisest distribution of the forces in the 
light of the principles of strategy. The 
special studies conducted by the Christian 
leaders in Japan during the last two or three 
years, indicate the great advantages of such 
a policy. It is believed that similar investi- 
gations and resultant changes in policy 
would be equally rewarding in other fields. 
The time has come to lay plans upon such a 
scale and to direct strategy on such lines as 
are worthy of Christian leaders who expect 
to conquer a world. 

Statesmanship is required to develop a 
type of evangelistic work adapted to meet 
the needs of the various non-Christian coun- 
tries. The cause of Christian education has 
properly commanded the best thought of an 
increasing number of missionaries and of mis- 
sionary administrators, but the evangelistic 
work stands quite as much in need of having 
bestowed upon it much original and con- 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 63 

structive thinking. Recent experiences in 
China reveal the great possibilities of con- 
centrating the thought of leaders on methods 
of preparing for, conducting and following 
up evangelistic campaigns calculated to reach 
the most influential classes as well as the 
masses. The three-years' evangelistic cam- 
paign recently launched in Japan, and in 
which virtually all the Christian forces are 
uniting, is a splendid illustration of truly 
statesmanlike conception and plan, and 
should stimulate leaders in other fields to 
larger undertakings. There is admittedly 
great need of multiplying the number of well- 
qualified apologetic lecturers, preachers and 
writers who will present the claims of Christ 
and His program in terms which will com- 
mand the intellectual confidence of educated 
and thinking men. It will require construc- 
tive thinking to work out and secure the ac- 
ceptance of plans which will not only make 
possible the discovery and training of these 
much-needed workers, but will also release 
them from other responsibilities and place 
them where they can render this great service. 



64 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

To frame and carry out a policy for reach- 
ing the outcastes and the depressed masses 
demands statesmanlike plan and effort. This 
problem is a very extensive one, involving 
many scores of millions of people. It would be 
difficult to overstate the urgency of putting 
into operation plans more nearly adequate 
for reaching these neglected millions. Take, 
for example, the more than fifty millions of 
"untouchables" in India. Within a genera- 
tion they are to be absorbed by Hinduism, 
Mohammedanism and Christianity. At the 
National Conference, held in Calcutta under 
the auspices of the Continuation Committee 
in December, 1912, it was brought out con- 
clusively that a really thorough work among 
these depressed classes exerts a profound and 
favorable influence on the upper classes. In- 
creasing experience has shown that wherever 
there is a so-called mass movement, the 
Christian forces should be strengthened in 
order to deal with it promptly. 

To establish and develop indigenous 
Churches and at the same time to relate them 
to the Christian Church of other lands affords 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 65 

a field for the highest order of Christian 
statesmanship. It requires rare ability to 
understand, to appreciate and to foster in- 
digenous thought, customs and talents, to 
develop from the beginning native initiative, 
leadership and sense of responsibility, to en- 
list and train native ministers, to help solve 
the economic problem of new Churches, and 
to hold these rising Churches in vital union 
with the Christian Church of other lands. 

Men of large gifts and furnishing are 
needed to meet the Christian educational 
opportunity now confronting us in every part 
of the non-Christian world. The remarkable 
development of vast secular or government 
educational systems in the Far East and Near 
East, as well as in other mission fields, calls 
for a great expansion of educational missions 
and for an able leadership. Think of the 
opportunities in China alone where it is now 
possible for Christian educationalists to influ- 
ence the standards of government education, 
as well as those of mission schools. To master 
even the elements of this problem, however, 
demands nothing less than statesmanship. 



66 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

In the realm of the production and dis- 
tribution of Christian literature, statesmen 
are needed. There must be a more thorough 
study than any hitherto made of the need for 
literature among non-Christians and among 
members of Christian communities. Here 
also should be mentioned that unsolved mis- 
sionary problem of getting competent writers 
released from other responsibilities, relating 
them to the work of literary production, and 
making conditions favorable for their con- 
tinuance in this work which underlies the 
largest efficiency and fruitfulness of every 
other phase of missionary activity. It is evi- 
dent also that much more comprehensive 
plans must be devised for bringing about 
desirable unification of Christian literature 
societies in the different fields, just as has 
been recently accomplished in Japan. This 
would ensure a more economical and effective 
arrangement for supplying the literature now 
demanded on every field. 

To help create under Christian guidance 
the medical profession for nearly two-thirds 
of the inhabitants of the non-Christian world 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 67 

can be accomplished only by leading minds. 
In China, for example, such men have the 
opportunity to provide a system for educat- 
ing thousands of Chinese doctors, to afford 
facilities for the present medical missionary 
forces to keep abreast of the times on the 
scientific side of their preparation, to increase 
the efficiency of the two hundred or more 
Christian hospitals scattered throughout the 
entire country, and to introduce many other 
agencies and institutions for the physical 
amelioration and betterment of the Chinese. 
In this connection reference is made, not to 
the work of the medical missionary as edu- 
cator, administrator or philanthropist, but to 
that of the statesman who is qualified to 
widen greatly the opportunity of all these. 

To help solve the crushing social problems 
of non-Christian lands there must be mis- 
sionary statesmen. The non-Christian na- 
tions are honeycombed with social evils, and 
their peoples are bearing burdens too great 
to be borne. These evils are much more ex- 
tensive, and are intensively more obstinate 
than the similar problems which press upon 



68 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Christian leaders at home. Where, for ex- 
ample, on the home field is there a social 
problem comparable to that of caste in India? 
Where in the West is woman's lot so sad and 
hopeless as it is throughout the Moham- 
medan world? On^the mission field, as well 
as in Christian lands, pure Christianity is 
the only hope for the solution of social ills. 
Moreover, non-Christian countries should be 
saved from the social evils peculiar to the 
West. The industrial revolution is already 
spreading to the Orient, and is destined to in- 
crease in volume and momentum. How im- 
portant it is that soon there be placed at the 
disposal of these peoples the Christian rem- 
edy — the only sufficient relief for evils which 
are sure to follow. Why should the lands of 
Asia and Africa reproduce the tenement 
house congestion with which we are so 
sadly familiar in Europe and America? 
Why should child labor be introduced in 
countries like Japan? When people selfishly 
or thoughtlessly take the position that the 
social problems at home are so great and so 
acute as to demand undivided attention, it 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 69 

should be pointed out that for every social 
service expert or leader in fields like China, 
India and Turkey, there are a hundred or 
more in North America, Great Britain and 
certain Continental countries. 

In some respects the most serious, as well 
as the most distinctive, problem of our 
generation is the racial problem. Increasing 
racial misunderstandings, prejudices, fric- 
tion and hatred greatly hinder the spread of 
Christianity. For example, the gulf which 
separates the white and the black in South 
Africa threatens to be the grave of Christian 
ideals in that part of the world. This problem 
in its different aspects calls for the highest 
and most disinterested statesmanship. 

One of the most inspiring fields of Chris- 
tian statesmanship is that of facilitating and 
guiding the movement in the direction of 
closer co-ordination, co-operation and unifica- 
tion of the Christian forces. In many fields 
this movement is advancing at a remarkable 
rate. It must have wise guidance in order 
that its attendant dangers may be averted or 
overcome. Notwithstanding the splendid 



70 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

progress already being made, there is urgent 
demand for better co-ordination and much 
closer co-operation between the various Mis- 
sions and Churches. There should be a 
better correlation of the work of the sexes 
and of different departments of mission 
work, as well as of different Societies and 
nationalities participating in the enterprise. 
Too often varied and extensive missionary 
forces have been poured into a mission field 
from many sources and without reference 
to each other. With our many Societies, 
large and small, there is serious danger of scat- 
tering energies instead of grappling in serried 
strength with the mighty task. The time 
has come to put an end to the wastefulness 
and comparatively meager results caused by 
lack of concerted plan and effort. The state- 
ment made at the Edinburgh Conference 
that a practical plan of co-operation, entered 
into intelligently and adhered to loyally on 
the part of the missionary forces, would be 
more than the equivalent of doubling the 
number of foreign missionaries has never 
been controverted. As there are not less 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 71 

than twenty-one thousand Protestant mis- 
sionaries, it is evident that we are dealing 
with a question of large dimensions, and none 
but leaders of large mold are capable of 
dealing with it adequately. 

To ensure better training of missionaries 
who are to lead this greatest enterprise known 
among men, there must be more thorough 
and courageous thinking and action. Not 
one Christian college or theological seminary 
in ten has a curriculum and other facilities 
for equipping men to meet the responsibilities 
of the modern missionary career. Relatively 
speaking, no other learned profession has 
such poor provision for its proper training. 
Intending missionaries are getting ready to 
enter upon the most difficult and exacting 
work on earth. It is a task involving nothing 
less than the reconstruction of the non- 
Christian world. Moreover, the missionary 
movement has just entered upon a new stage. 
The World Missionary Conference in Edin- 
burgh in 1910 ushered in a better day, for the 
missionary problem must henceforth be 
treated more largely than heretofore as a 

6 



72 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

problem in applied science. The missionary 
enterprise has taken its place among those 
great works which require the ablest general- 
ship. 

To work out enlarged plans which will re- 
sult in an effective occupation of the unoccu- 
pied fields is a task that calls loudly for great 
leaders. The fact that there are still so many 
fields which can be characterized as unoccu- 
pied is traceable primarily to the want of 
Christian statesmanship. Nothing but the 
lack of such world-wide vision and planning 
would have delayed by so many centuries 
the accomplishment of this God-given task. 
Who can question that if such talents had 
been more fully exercised many of the totally 
unoccupied fields, and many of those which 
are partially occupied, would long since have 
been entered in force. The fact that entrance 
into certain fields is attended with such 
very great difficulties suggests that men of 
unusual power are demanded to meet and 
overcome them. What Hudson Taylor ac- 
complished at a time of greater difficulty 
than the present, and in a field more vast than 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 73 

any which now remains unoccupied, should 
strengthen our faith to believe that the em- 
ployment of like powers would lead to a 
masterly occupation of the great unoccupied 
spaces of Africa and of many parts of the 
Mohammedan world. 

First-rate statesmen are needed to bring 
about a more mutually helpful relation be- 
tween the Mission Boards at home and the 
administrative leaders of the Missions and 
Churches on the field. The great problem 
of the administration of missions is to com- 
bine in due proportions centralization in the 
settlement of principles and in the determin- 
ation of general policies on the one hand, and 
on the other hand the application of principles 
and the adaptation and working out of poli- 
cies. The growing independence and lead- 
ership of native Churches, as well as the de- 
velopment of co-operation between Churches 
and between different Missions, are introdu- 
cing new difficulties, thus calling for new 
definitions of relationships. 

The service of the Mission Boards opens 
up a career of large scope. At a time like 



74 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

this there is imperative need of having re- 
lated to the missionary councils more men 
such as Rufus Anderson, one of the early 
secretaries of the American Board, and 
Henry Venn, a man who for over thirty years 
as Honorary Secretary of the Church Mis- 
sionary Society, exhibited to a rare degree 
the qualities of a great minister of state. 

On every home field, quite as much as on 
the mission field, there is need of more men 
of outstanding ability and leadership to re- 
lease the latent energies of the home Church 
and to relate these to the plans of the expand- 
ing Kingdom. Here lies one of the largest 
tasks of constructive statesmanship. On its 
accomplishment depends the full realization 
of nearly every one of the other great under- 
takings to which attention has been called. 
We need only think of the boundless capaci- 
ties of North American and European Chris- 
tians for faith, for heroic achievement, for 
vicariousness, and for intercession, to realize 
the great scope there is for a most profitable 
exercise of the gifts of finest leadership. How 
true it is that the Churches everywhere are 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 75 

ready to follow the guidance of those who 
show themselves worthy of trust! 

What should characterize the missionary 
statesman so much needed to meet the pres- 
ent world situation confronting the Christian 
Church? A missionary statesman is one who 
exhibits conspicuous wisdom and ability in 
the direction or management of missionary 
affairs. It will be well to examine the differ- 
ent traits that such a man should possess. 
Possibly no one man combines in himself all of 
these qualifications, but taken together they 
constitute an ideal which should be kept in 
mind. 

The true missionary statesman is a man 
of vision, in the sense of seeing things in the 
large. He ever takes the larger and broader 
view rather than the fractional, the parochial 
or the provincial. It was said of Lord Cur- 
zon that he had acquired for himself the 
power of looking at Asia as a whole. This 
ability made him as Viceroy one of the great- 
est foreign ministers India ever had. The 
Vatican is one of the few places where they 
think of the world as a whole. St. Paul was a 



76 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

statesman in the sense here emphasized, for 
as Sir William Ramsay, in his " Pauline and 
Other Studies," has pointed out, he thought 
in terms of provinces, and his aim embraced 
the conquering of the Roman world, which 
would ultimately mean the whole world. 

The missionary statesman has vision also, 
in the sense of looking far into the future. 
He is concerned not merely with the passing 
requirements of the hour, but with the abid- 
ing needs of the people and of the country. 
He builds not for to-day and not merely for 
to-morrow, but for all time. Bacon uses the 
word " longanimity" to characterize the 
quality of mind required in those who look 
ahead to the far-reaching consequences of 
present plans. There is needed on every mis- 
sion field among the leaders this power to 
anticipate, to foresee the developments of 
present tendencies and the outcome of forces 
silently at work. It was said of Washington 
that "he was accustomed to contemplate at 
a distance those critical situations in which 
the United States might probably be placed; 
and to digest, before the occasion required 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 77 

action, the line of conduct which it would be 
proper to observe." It reminds one of that 
great Scottish missionary statesman, Alex- 
ander Duff of India. In speaking of his mis- 
sionary policy, which involved long prepara- 
tory processes, he said: "Spurning the notion 
of a present day's success, and a present year's 
wonder, we directed our views not merely to 
the present but to future generations." His 
policy was to deal not only with separating 
atoms but with laying a mine which would 
one day explode and tear up the whole struc- 
ture from its lowest depths. 

The missionary statesman must evince 
ability to grasp, define and apply correct 
governing principles. It is not easy to dis- 
cover and utilize guiding principles, especially 
in untried fields and in dealing with unsolved 
problems. Dr. Nevius of Shantung Province, 
China, through a long and fruitful career, 
demonstrated capacity to seize upon and 
utilize great principles. Mackay of Uganda 
in applying the principle of the cantilever 
bridge in missions (that is, the extent to 
which the missionary enterprise is expanded 



78 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

on the mission field is determined by the 
degree to which missionary interest and con- 
secration are developed among Christians at 
the home base) illustrates the point in ques- 
tion. Christian leaders to-day may wisely 
test their plans and actions by the principles 
enunciated by Jesus Christ. 

The statesman in every sphere is one also 
who recognizes and observes relationships. 
He sees that each part of the plan is related 
to the other parts and must be made sub- 
servient to the chief object he has in view. 
Moreover, he evolves the particular plan in 
question in relation to other important plans 
and interests. The statesman utilizes all that 
will help to advance his policies. He makes 
the most of political, social and religious 
trends, movements and institutions. He 
always takes advantage of a rising tide. Dr. 
Verbeck accomplished a far larger and more 
enduring work for Christ in Japan by identi- 
fying himself sympathetically with the grow- 
ing national aspirations of the people than 
he would have accomplished had he been in- 
different to them. President Harada of the 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 79 

Doshisha, and Mr. J. N. Farquhar, a leader 
of the Christian Student Movement in In- 
dia, have exhibited this statesmanlike trait 
of seeking to build on whatever is good and 
true in the ancient religions and ethics of the 
people. Mr. K. T. Paul, as General Secretary 
of the National Missionary Society of India, 
showed great wisdom in pointing out the ad- 
vantages for the spread of Christianity which 
would result from utilizing the membership 
of the panchayats, that is, the small councils 
or administrative groups of Indian villages. 
The more thoroughly the missionary catches 
the point of view and sympathizes with the 
feeling of those among whom he labors, the 
more extensive and profound will be his in- 
fluence upon them. The Christian states- 
man shows ability to co-ordinate and unite 
elements or forces in order to produce the 
largest results. What splendid illustrations 
are being afforded to-day on nearly every 
mission field in connection with the promising 
union movements and enterprises. The wide 
and insistent demand for a larger exercise 
of this gift is set forth in a later chapter. 



80 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

The capacity to select and guide men, es- 
pecially strong men, has ever been one of the 
marks of great statesmen. This is set forth 
admirably in Rothschild's " Lincoln, Master 
of Men," a book which should be read and 
studied by all who desire to render larger 
service to their generation. Most foreign 
missionaries have unlimited scope for the 
exercise of this talent. From the nature of 
the case the foreign missionary, unlike most 
home missionaries, must be a trainer and 
leader of men. He must acquire the ability 
to estimate wisely varied capacities and 
adaptabilities for the tasks to be accom- 
plished. In some respects the most distinct- 
ive function of missionary life is this which 
might be called the supervisory or episcopal 
function. 

The statesmen, both in the Church and out- 
side the Church, who have left the deepest 
mark on their generation have been men of 
large power of sympathy and of imagination. 
These terms are used almost synonymously, 
and imply the capacity to put oneself at 
the point of view of those whom one would 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 81 

help or serve. All peoples, races and classes 
are responsive to intelligent sympathy. A 
few years ago Lord Morley made a most dis- 
criminating remark in complaining that the 
English "are making administration less per- 
sonal, though evidence also tends to show 
that the Indian people are peculiarly respon- 
sive to sympathy and personal influence. " 
The thought involved in this criticism should 
ever be borne in mind by the missionary ad- 
ministrator, for it is indeed true that no states- 
man can be truly great without this gift of 
imagination. A successful Viceroy of India 
recently voiced a great truth for all states- 
men, missionary or political, to heed: "De- 
pend upon it, you will never rule the East 
except through the heart, and the moment 
imagination has gone out of your Asiatic 
policy your Empire will dwindle and decay." 
Wherever one travels over the non-Christian 
world he is impressed by the fact that those 
missionaries who have shown deepest sym- 
pathy with the people are exerting the most 
far-reaching influence. 

The missionary statesman has an under- 



82 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

standing of the times and situations in which 
he finds himself and of the inherent require- 
ments involved. This knowledge of what is 
needed, this ability to judge of the time of 
ripeness for action, this skill in the " under- 
standing of the times," is an indispensable 
trait for the Christian leader. The elder Pitt 
saw in North America a chance to wrest a 
continent from a powerful enemy, and ably 
directed his policy to this end. We need 
William Pitts to-day in Europe and America 
to rouse the entire Church to see our world 
opportunity. The late Professor Gustav 
Warneck of Germany showed this character- 
istic in anticipating not long before his death 
what many now see regarding the critical op- 
portunity then presented in Japan; that is, 
he discerned before it came the new day of 
God's visitation. The Bishop of Madras, in 
his constant insistence on the urgency of 
reaching the " untouchables" of India, illus- 
trates the same trait. 

The missionary statesman shows great wis- 
dom in planning. This is revealed in his 
choice of places of contact, in his modes or 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 83 

measures of approach, in the means employed 
to achieve the victory and in the time he 
chooses for the essential struggle. There is 
need in every country of men who will evolve 
a definite, comprehensive and progressive 
policy for taking the land for Christ. The 
leaders needed are men who are able to real- 
ize their visions. The great statesman is a 
master builder. He is a man of courage, of 
faith, and of resolution in action. Of what 
value would Hudson Taylor's vision of in- 
land China have been had he not devoted 
himself from the time he received it until his 
death to doing all in his power to realize his 
vision? As a result his Mission is now repre- 
sented by a thousand missionaries in the more 
neglected parts of China. 

The statesman counsels with others and 
seeks to profit from their knowledge and ex- 
perience. In a sense he himself is an expert 
in the work of securing, testing and using the 
information provided by others. It is his 
business to use the specialist knowledge of 
others rather than to furnish it himself. 
Marshall said of Washington, " Taught to 



84 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

distrust first impressions, he sought to ac- 
quire all the information which was attain- 
able, and to hear, without prejudice, all the 
reasons which could be urged for or against a 
particular measure. His own judgment was 
suspended until it became necessary to de- 
termine, and his decisions, thus maturely- 
made, were seldom if ever to be shaken." The 
missionary statesman must be a man of judg- 
ment. Balance or poise of mind — sound 
common sense — constitutes after all possibly 
the chief ingredient of statesmanship. This 
practical good sense, while in some respects 
the most rare, is certainly one of the most 
valuable qualities of the mind. Above all, 
the missionary statesman forgets himself. 
He ever seeks large and beneficent results 
for others and not personal prominence and 
recognition. On the mission field this is evi- 
dent in his attitude toward the native Church 
and native leaders. 

How may the number of missionary states- 
men be multiplied? How may missionary 
statesmanship be developed? One secret 
lies in missionaries and administrators of 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 85 

Missionary Societies devoting themselves to 
vast and overwhelmingly difficult under- 
takings. No man can take in God's great 
design for the human race and not be 
enlarged by the contemplation of such a 
purpose. Time after time one has observed 
men who, when they first went out to the 
mission field or entered upon the service of 
some Mission Board at home, were compara- 
tively small men, but who, as a result of be- 
coming absorbed with large plans, have been 
developed into men of wide vision and strong 
grasp. This probably explains the fact that 
a larger proportion of mediocre men on the 
mission field develop into greatness than on 
the home field. 

Large responsibilities, great issues and 
great situations call out the latent powers in 
men and make possible the development of 
any gift of statesmanship within them. We 
often hear complaints of the lack of leader- 
ship manifested among native Christian 
workers. Possibly one reason is that the 
missionaries do not place full and sufficiently 
heavy responsibility upon them. There is 



86 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

danger, moreover, that the policy of some 
Mission Boards is such as to discourage the 
development among their own missionaries 
of the largest power of initiative and leader- 
ship. Let men become lost in the great cause 
of making Christ's reign co-extensive with 
the inhabited earth. An atmosphere of un- 
selfishness is essential for the development of 
the prophetic spirit which must characterize 
the true Christian statesman. The only way 
a man can successfully forget himself is by 
becoming so occupied with thoughts and 
plans for the betterment of others that he 
literally loses himself. 

Intimate association of leading minds 
stimulates the development of statesmanlike 
views and action. Conferences of missionary 
administrators, and of missionaries or leaders 
of the Church, for the thorough consideration 
of problems and plans are to be welcomed. 
The influence in this direction of the Annual 
Conferences of representatives of Mission 
Boards held in North America, in the British 
Isles and in Germany, is increasingly observ- 
able. The work of the eight Commissions 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 87 

during the years preceding the Edinburgh 
Conference, and likewise the varied activi- 
ties of the Special Committees of the Con- 
tinuation Committee, are all tending to de- 
velop a larger and truer statesmanship among 
the leaders of the Christian forces. Visits by 
those who are recognized Christian states- 
men have a contagious influence. It would 
be difficult to overstate the good accom- 
plished in this way by the visits of Alexander 
Duff to Scotland and to America during his 
furloughs. 

The thorough study of the constructive 
achievements of the leaders of Christianity 
in other fields and in other centuries will help 
to develop statesmanlike traits. Wise travel 
in foreign lands is invaluable in developing 
the habit of trained observation and in help- 
ing to acquire the keenness of outlook and 
balance of mind which are such important 
elements in statesmanship. Reference has 
been made to the large understanding of East- 
ern affairs possessed by Lord Curzon. Early 
in life he set himself the task of visiting and 
studying every important Asiatic country. 



88 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

"The East is a university," he said, "in which 
the scholar never takes a degree." Some of 
the most suggestive and helpful discussions of 
missionary problems, such, for example, as 
the book by Dr. Edward A. Lawrence, 
"Modern Missions in the East," were the 
result of comparative and comprehensive 
study made possible by wide travel. The 
close study of church history is indispensable 
to the understanding and solution of some of 
the most pressing problems of Christian mis- 
sions. Possibly no subject should be more 
studied just now by missionaries and admin- 
istrators, because, as Dr. J. C. Gibson 
pointed out in a recent conference, the 
Church has been through it all before. The 
value of the International Review of Missions 
and of the corresponding quarterly of the 
Roman Catholic Church, published in the 
German language, in promoting thorough 
consideration of missionary questions is most 
evident. India, China and Japan should 
have high grade, scientific, missionary period- 
icals edited by men who themselves are Chris- 
tian statesmen. 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 89 

In every great mission field some men 
should be put in a position to study the needs 
and the problems of the country as a whole. 
Moreover, there should be at least a few men 
in Christendom who are set apart to study 
and plan in the interest of the program of 
Christianity for the entire world. In every 
field among Christian workers may be 
found devotion, zeal, self-sacrifice and great 
activity, but there is dire need of men who 
have the power to see the situation as a whole, 
and who are responsible for dealing with it 
as a whole. Each missionary and each mis- 
sionary administrator is necessarily so full 
of his own plans and work that very few of 
them take the wider view. The large 
majority of workers are comparatively igno- 
rant of what is going on outside their own 
particular communion or field. Generally 
speaking, therefore, there cannot be expected 
from them the comprehensive outlook which 
is so much needed, although it should be re- 
iterated that within the sphere of the work 
or field for which they are primarily respon- 
sible there is large outlet for statesmanlike 



90 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

gifts. To understand and to appreciate fully 
the great world movements and tendencies 
now at work requires knowledge of more than 
one Christian communion, nation, or race. 
Better use should be made of the furloughs 
and of the foreign journeys of missionaries 
and native leaders. Dr. Gibson of China 
wisely calls attention to the advantages of a 
worker stepping outside his own work to 
look at it from the outside, and to study it in 
its larger relations. 

One of the most important ways of develop- 
ing statesmanship in Christian missions is 
that of affording missionary workers ample 
time and other conditions favorable for think- 
ing upon their work and problems. Emerson 
calls a statesman "a scholar thinking." It 
takes time for prolonged reflection to develop 
statesmanlike vision and plan. In every land 
and in every Church there are men competent 
to do this — men with the capacity, and in a 
measure with the training, for true statesman- 
ship. * Moreover, Christian missions abound 
with problems and situations calling for its 
exercise. The trouble is that many of the 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 91 

men possessing the ability or latent capacity 
to become statesmen are so absorbed with 
executive work, and have their time so 
frittered away by countless details, minor en- 
gagements and interruptions that they are 
unable to secure the prolonged periods of 
time and the conditions favorable for quiet 
reflection and constructive thinking. From 
the nature of the case the reason why so many 
problems are still unsolved, and why so 
many situations are still unmastered is be- 
cause men are not thinking long enough and 
deeply enough. 

Unceasing toil is one of the processes re- 
quired for the development of statesmanship. 
This is as true in the work of the Church as in 
the affairs of State. Morley speaks of the 
" infinite labor" of Gladstone as one of the 
causes of his unique leadership. Gladstone 
himself claimed that one thing which char- 
acterized his whole career was "the desire to 
learn." The more closely we study the habits 
of the leading minds in missionary affairs, 
the more we are impressed by the fact that 
their leadership, their larger understanding 



92 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

and their most distinguished services have 
been made possible in no small part by their 
prodigious toil. 

A deepening acquaintance and fellowship 
with God and a habit of pondering His de- 
signs, His ways, His wishes and His resources 
are essential and absolutely central. The 
Psalmist has said that God "made known His 
ways to Moses, His doings unto the children 
of Israel." To-day among the thousands of 
missionary workers and leaders there are 
many who apparently have recognized the 
wonderful acts of Almighty God, but how 
few give one the impression that they have 
entered into intimate acquaintance with His 
ways. The statesmanship of the apostolic 
age had its springs in a life of communion with 
the living God. The founders of Christianity 
did not sit at the feet of men of great gifts 
and experience, yet they saw further and 
built more largely and securely than the out- 
standing political or religious leaders of sub- 
sequent centuries. Whence did they acquire 
their statecraft? They developed the deeper 
penetration, the larger understanding, the 



NEED FOR STATESMANSHIP 93 

true self-detachment, as the Master did, 
through communion with God Himself. To 
a degree of which we have not dreamed the 
statesmanship of the Kingdom so imperative- 
ly demanded in these days depends upon fre- 
quent and patient waiting upon God and 
upon the discerning and following of His 
providential leadings. If there be compara- 
tively little in missionary planning and policy 
which reminds us of superhuman wisdom 
and power, may not the reason lie right here? 
In a true sense the power of Christian states- 
manship is God-given. Is not the missionary 
statesman a prophet whom God has called, 
and to whom He has given a vision and the 
power to persuade men to follow it? The 
one adequate missionary mind is the Spirit 
of God. Except as He guides, inspires and 
emboldens workers and movements, how 
futile is all our devising, but when He mani- 
fests His presence, wisdom and power, how 
the results transcend all human experiences, 
calculations and expectations! 



THE UNCHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF THE 

IMPACT OF OUR WESTERN 

CIVILIZATION 



IV 

THE UNCHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF THE 

IMPACT OF OUR WESTERN 

CIVILIZATION 

During the recent years there has been a 
vast multiplication of contacts of so-called 
Christian nations with non-Christian peoples. 
The marked improvement and the wide 
extension of all means of communication 
have had most to do with making this 
possible. It has been said that steam has an- 
nihilated nine-tenths of the space of the world 
and that electricity has cancelled the re- 
mainder. There has been an enormous 
growth of trade and commerce. This is im- 
pressively shown by a map prepared by the 
editor of the periodical Cotton and Finance 
showing the regions which have been made 
commercially accessible since 1890 through 
exploration, through treaties and through 
railroad and telegraph extension. An ag- 
gressive policy of political expansion on the 

97 



98 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

part of European nations has served to 
multiply greatly the points of contact. 
Over three-fourths of the area of the habitable 
globe is under the control of civilized powers, 
and though vast multitudes remain non- 
Christian, there is scarcely a spot in which 
the influence of the Western nations is not 
felt, and in which the backward and uncivil- 
ized races are not being influenced by the 
ideas and practices of the more advanced 
nations. 

The streams of emigration of laboring 
classes from the Orient and from the Near 
East by their direct and refluent action tend 
to bring the more and the less advanced 
civilizations into closer touch with one an- 
other. The growing migrations of students 
from land to land are of large significance 
owing to the fact that they represent the 
future leaders of the nations concerned. The 
prodigious activities of the secular press in 
all parts of the world have accomplished won- 
ders in bringing before readers in any one 
nation what is going on in other nations. 
The development of international law and 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 99 

the varied offices of diplomacy are further 
serving to destroy the isolation of nations. 
The multiplication of international societies 
affords a striking illustration of the contrac- 
tion and unification of the world and also 
reveals one of the principal causes facilitat- 
ing this process. There has been held within 
two years in Brussels a gathering of repre- 
sentatives of international societies. It per- 
fected an organization called "The Union 
of International Associations." This society 
publishes a monthly entitled La Vie Inter- 
nationale. The annual report of this society 
gives a list of over four hundred existing in- 
ternational organizations, commercial, indus- 
trial, scientific, political, educational and 
social. 

The countless ships of commerce, the rail- 
way trains moving in every direction, and 
these many other agencies and influences, are 
serving as great shuttles which are weaving 
the nations together into one complex web. 
Every day civilization is becoming more and 
more international. National thought, na- 
tional custom and national action are giving 



100 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

way in every sphere to internationalism. 
Races which have had nothing in common 
are discovering increasingly their interde- 
pendence, and are seeking earnestly to under- 
stand each other and to find ground for 
co-operation. For thousands of years the 
East and West have lived apart; but it be- 
comes more and more evident that their 
destinies are blending and that for all the 
future they must live together. Not except- 
ing the mingling of the peoples in the days of 
Alexander the Great, or at the time of the 
invasion of the Roman Empire by the north- 
ern nations, or at the coming together of the 
different civilizations in the Crusades, has 
there ever been a movement comparable in 
extent and significance with this modern 
spread of the civilization of the West, and 
the present-day intermingling of the races 
of mankind. 

From the point of view of Christian mis- 
sions this marked contraction of the world 
and the great multiplication of points of con- 
tact between Western civilization and the 
non-Christian nations is of the largest sig- 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 101 

nificance. It not only has immeasurably 
widened the opportunity of Christian mis- 
sions and afforded facilities which make pos- 
sible more prompt and efficient conduct of 
missionary operations, but has also enor- 
mously increased and intensified the diffi- 
culties of the task. In every part of the 
non-Christian world men of bad character 
and influence have gone to blast and destroy 
where missionaries have gone to save and 
upbuild. While on the one hand trade and 
colonial politics are opening the world's doors, 
they are, on the other hand, closing the peo- 
ple's hearts to the teachings of Christianity. 
The improved means of communication 
which facilitate the sending of missionaries 
to take to non-Christians the best that we 
have, also make it easier for the people of 
non-Christian lands to come among us and 
thus see much that belies and counteracts the 
message of the missionary. Thousands of 
Mohammedan traders are using the white 
man's roads as their trade routes, and every 
Moslem trader is a Mohammedan mission- 
ary. While the Trans-Siberian Railway, the 



102 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Cape to Cairo Railway, the various lines 
reaching from the east, west and north coasts 
toward the heart of Africa, the German rail- 
ways penetrating the Asiatic Levant and the 
network of railways spreading over China, 
Southern Asia and Latin America have made 
hundreds of millions of the inhabitants of 
Asia, Africa and Latin America much more 
accessible to the Christian propaganda, they 
have at the same time exposed these multi- 
tudes to the devastating touch of that which 
is evil in Western civilization. 

What are the unchristian aspects of the 
present-day impact of Western civilization 
upon the non-Christian world? One, cer- 
tainly, is that of the unchristian attitude and 
actions of Christian powers or governments. 
In some cases this has been exhibited in the 
seizure or stealing of territory. Thus ninety- 
six per cent, of the African continent has 
been parceled out among European nations. 
Persia has virtually been divided between 
two Christian powers. Other large sections 
in the heart of Asia have been claimed as 
zones of influence by European nations. 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 103 

Considerable areas of China have been taken 
from her by so-called civilized powers. The 
history of the concessions demanded and 
wrung from China in her sea coast and river 
ports is one of which the West may well be 
ashamed. Through such seizure of great 
areas and ports in different parts of the 
world the men of Western lands have given 
notice that the yellow and black races must 
be obedient to their will. Such aggressions 
build up a high wall against the moral and 
religious teachings emanating from represen- 
tatives of these aggressive nations. Is it 
strange that many of the better informed of 
the peoples of these weaker countries say, 
" Christianity is the religion of the lands 
which have thus insulted, injured and robbed 
us. We want none of it." 

The unchristian attitude of some Christian 
governments is seen in the ignoring of treaties 
with weaker states. Of this we have had 
illustration in the African and Asiatic Levant 
within very recent years. There is danger 
also that Japan may entertain similar feel- 
ings concerning America. One of her leading 

8 



104 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

men has said in another connection that the 
example of Western Christian powers shows 
that they do not recognize any universal 
ethical principles in their dealings with other 
nations. Who can measure the harm done to 
Christianity and to the name of Western 
civilization by the self-seeking and dominat- 
ing political intercourse of so-called Christian 
powers with more backward nations! At 
times laws are passed or tolerated which must 
impress the non-Christian peoples as unjust 
and certainly out of harmony with the prin- 
ciples of the Christian religion as expounded 
by the missionaries. It was recently reported 
that there might be grave danger that such 
an impression would be made upon millions 
of the blacks of South Africa should certain 
proposed laws regarding the buying or selling 
of land by natives be carried into effect. 
The sending out and maintaining as officials 
those whose lives are a reproach and a con- 
tradiction to the Christian name does much 
to counteract the good accomplished by 
devoted missionaries. Notwithstanding the 
marked improvement in the personnel of 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 105 

consulates and embassies of certain West- 
ern Christian nations, there are still far 
too many debasing examples among these 
men who represent Europe and America 
in Asia and Africa. The carrying of the 
policy of religious neutrality to extremes 
among peoples ruled by Western Christian 
nations militates strongly at times against 
the proper understanding and rapid spread 
of Christianity. Such a policy in fields like 
India and in the Sudan means in reality the 
undue favoring of Hinduism and Moham- 
medanism. Christianity does not require 
nor ask for preferential treatment but simply 
for equal opportunity and equal favor. 

Wrong practices in commercial and in- 
dustrial relations present another unchristian 
aspect of the impact of the civilization of the 
West. Too often this has been shown by a 
policy of cruel exploitation. The Congo 
horrors are too recent to call for restatement. 
When one remembers the promises of the 
Christian powers which, when that state was 
established, solemnly engaged to watch over 
the preservation of the native races and to co- 



106 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

operate in the suppression of slavery, one 
realizes what an obstacle to the spread of 
Christianity has been the long record of 
sinful neglect. While the situation has been 
changed for the better in very recent years, 
it is still essential that all Christian govern- 
ments preserve an attitude of earnest vigil- 
ance to see that the policy of reform is faith- 
fully carried out. The Putumayo atrocities 
in Peru have afforded a still more recent 
example of what may go on as a result of 
the cupidity and cruelty of exploiters from 
Christian lands. 

More commonly these evil practices are 
exhibited in the form of dishonest and un- 
scrupulous commercial transactions. While 
some Western firms have enviable names for 
fair dealing with backward peoples, there are 
other companies and organizations, including 
some of the great syndicates of the world, 
which have a most unfavorable reputation 
and record in this respect. Far too often 
the white man has cajoled, bullied, threatened 
and bribed the Asiatic and the African, has 
reaped enormous profits, and when he has 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 107 

fallen into entanglements has called upon his 
Government to help him out. It has been 
indeed a disgraceful record. What wonder 
that such treatment arouses bitter resent- 
ment not only against individuals who are 
immediately responsible but also against the 
race and the religion of the land represented 
by such men. 

Most frequently these very unsatisfactory 
commercial relations are operative through 
the influence of the corrupt lives of traders 
and merchants. This constitutes one of the 
greatest stumbling blocks in the way of 
Christianity. Scattered throughout Turkey, 
the Pacific Islands, all parts of Asia and other 
non-Christian lands are thousands of Western 
traders, large numbers of whom are exerting a 
demoralizing influence. Lord Bryce, one of 
the best informed and one of the most dis- 
cerning students of racial conditions, has thus 
characterized this handicap to the spread of 
Christianity: " Christianity has often come 
to them as a religion professed by adventurers, 
who, bearing the Christian name, have 
despoiled or tricked them out of their lands, 



108 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

who have exploited their mines, who have 
grown rich upon their labor, who have ruined 
them by strong drink, who have treated 
them with roughness and with scorn, and 
sometimes even with barbarity. . . . Such 
men are the foul scum upon the advancing 
wave of civilization, and they undo and un- 
teach by their lives what Christianity is 
teaching by its precepts." 

The vicious practices of not a few soldiers 
and sailors are also akin to what has been said 
regarding so many of the traders. While 
words of highest praise should be spoken of 
those members of Western armies and navies 
who in the midst of indescribable temptations 
have preserved their Christian standards, 
the truth requires that we frankly admit the 
sad and tragic fact that many other repre- 
sentatives of these Western governments 
have exerted a decidedly opposite influence. 
One need only call attention to the zones 
of contamination around the cantonments 
in India and the too prevalent immoral 
practices of soldiers and sailors on shore 
leave when the naval vessels or army trans- 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 109 

ports are in the ports of non-Christian 
countries. 

The letting down of standards by many 
Western tourists likewise tends to undermine 
much of the good influence of the Christian 
propaganda. Here reference is made not so 
much to examples of extravagance and gen- 
eral worldliness, but rather to the question- 
able associations and habits of dissipation of 
many travelers in non-Christian lands. 
Moreover, the attitude of superiority which 
at times they manifest toward members of 
other races and their thoughtless and irrev- 
erent actions while visiting places which have 
sacred or inspiring associations in connection 
with religious or other institutions, exert a 
most unfortunate influence against Chris- 
tianity. Even when American and Euro- 
pean tourists do not depart from their 
ethical and religious standards or give them- 
selves to actions which belie the principles 
of Christianity, their failure to interest 
themselves in the work of the mission- 
aries and to identify themselves in an 
open way with the Christian movement 



110 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

cannot but weaken the impact of Chris- 
tianity. 

The spread of the physical temptations 
and evils of the West constitutes one of the 
most serious aspects of the unfavorable im- 
pact of Western lands upon non-Christian 
peoples. The multiplication of points of 
contact with the West has introduced among 
these peoples new temptations as well as 
added intensity and virulence to old temp- 
tations. What a record against the fair 
name of a great Christian power has been 
its complicity in helping to fasten the opium 
curse upon China. In the whole history of 
moral reform there can be found no more 
inspiring example than that of the heroic and 
apparently remarkably successful effort of 
the Chinese reformers to shake off this terri- 
ble evil. It is a depressing fact that by far 
the greatest opposition which these reform- 
ers encountered, extending to the very recent 
past, was that presented by representatives 
of a Christian government who, with almost 
incredible persistency and force, stedfastly 
resisted the efforts to eliminate this great 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 111 

evil. The comprehensive, persistent and 
vigorous measures employed by Western 
firms to introduce cigarettes among the tens 
of millions of the youth of China is another 
modern illustration of the same kind. Hun- 
dreds of able agents have been stationed in all 
parts of China for this purpose; and it is said 
that when they enter a new place there is for 
days a free distribution of cigarettes, even 
among small boys. 

The drink evil also was introduced among 
non-Christian peoples by emissaries from 
Western nations. Prior to the opening up 
of relations with the West this evil was com- 
paratively unknown in lands of the Far East, 
such as Japan, China and Korea. Moreover, 
the responsibility must ever rest upon Chris- 
tian nations for the introduction of liquor 
into all Moslem lands. It is a striking fact 
that Mohammedanism and Hinduism both 
forbid the drinking of intoxicating liquors. 
Christian nations have fixed upon the fol- 
lowers of these religions a great physical evil, 
have caused them to do violence to their con- 
science and their religion, and have blunted 



112 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

their sense of right and wrong. What must 
be the feelings of Christians from the West 
who hear, as one often does hear in Moham- 
medan lands, the remark " drunk as a Chris- 
tian." Among the pagan millions of Africa 
and in the Pacific Islands may be seen the 
worst ravages of the drink demon. It is re- 
ported that in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the 
Gold Coast in 1911 there were imported 
6,500,000 gallons of spirituous liquor of Euro- 
pean manufacture; and that in the Gold 
Coast alone a million cases of spirits are re- 
tailed every year. Drunkenness is on the 
increase in all parts of Africa. With truth, 
therefore, it may be said that so-called Chris- 
tian nations have been responsible not only 
for drugging China with opium but for de- 
bauching Africa with alcohol. 

It must be admitted also that much of the 
gross immorality all over Asia and Africa is 
traceable to Western influence. Men of the 
West have helped to make Eastern ports 
what Charles Darwin in his day called " moral 
plague spots." Disorderly houses have in- 
creased in the Near East as well as in the Far 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 113 

East. The growing immorality in South 
Africa is traceable to the depravity of natives 
stimulated by contact with the evils of civili- 
zation. That this is true is made clear by the 
testimony of investigators who contrast con- 
ditions to-day with what they were one or two 
generations ago. The large number of illegiti- 
mate children in German Africa made neces- 
sary recent startling action in the Reichstag 
of Germany. The widespread custom among 
European and American traders of keeping 
concubines presents necessarily a terrible 
obstacle to the spread of Christianity. What 
an occasion for humiliating reflection is the 
fact that some of the chiefs on the Lower 
Congo forbid the women and girls of their 
towns to go to the railroad towns even to 
trade because they recognize that these 
centers are the source of unnameable evils. 
The pitiful conditions that obtain at the 
settlements in mining communities, oil fields 
and construction camps where European and 
American men are concentrated in various 
parts of Asia and Africa, would seem almost 
unbelievable to those who had not had occa- 



114 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

sion to observe the facts at first hand. It is 
a solemn reflection that the vices of Western 
life seem to work with added deadliness 
among the peoples of more simple civiliza- 
tions and of the less highly organized races, 
such as those of Africa, Oceania and parts 
of Asia. 

There are certain unfavorable influences in 
the realm of education which are unfor- 
tunately traceable to so-called Christian 
lands. In nearly every city of the Orient and 
in other parts of the non-Christian world may 
be found works of infidel authors such as 
Ingersoll, Voltaire and Bradlaugh. Moreover, 
materialistic, agnostic and rationalistic litera- 
ture setting forth many of the unchristian 
teachings and ideas of such men as Huxley, 
Spencer, Nietzsche, Haeckel and Schopen- 
hauer has been translated and is being 
widely read in the vernaculars in all parts of 
the Far East and Near East. For example, 
some of the best scholars in China are en- 
gaged in bringing out such translations. The 
latest writings of destructive criticism, of 
theosophy and kindred cults, and of the 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 115 

philosophy of despair quickly find their way 
to Japan, as well as to other countries which 
are in touch with the West, and are repro- 
duced and widely circulated. Japan is cer- 
tainly an extraordinary welter of conflicting 
ideas and tendencies. Count Okuma is 
quoted by Commission IV of the Edinburgh 
Conference as saying: "Japan at present may 
be likened to a sea into which a hundred cur- 
rents of Oriental and Occidental thought have 
poured, and, not yet having effected a fusion, 
are raging wildly, tossing, warring, roaring." 
Attention should also be called to the de- 
velopment in the Far East and in Southern 
Asia, as well as in Latin America, and now 
beginning also in the Near East, of vast ex- 
panding systems of Western education com- 
pletely dominated by secularism, and, as a 
rule, by agnosticism. These constitute a 
great menace to the spread of true Christi- 
anity. 

Another evidence of the unfavorable im- 
pact of Western civilization is seen in the re- 
laxing and breaking down of the old-time 
sanctions of the non-Christian civilizations. 



116 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Non-Christian nations and peoples have one 
by one come to see that they must assimilate 
our Western knowledge and science if they 
are to maintain or regain their independence. 
Experience shows that this is likely to mean 
the destruction or radical transformation of 
most of their ancient faiths. Such an unset- 
tling process is attended with grave dangers. 
Possibly the greatest peril is that the people 
may be left without any restraint; that is, 
without any substitute for that which they 
have given up. This, for example, is the case 
with a multitude of the students of Japan. 
The blaze of modern science has dissolved 
faith in Buddhism and its ethical restraints 
have been thrown off. Well does it prompt 
the serious question of Count Okuma, 
" Whether we have not lost moral fiber as the 
result of the many new influences to which 
we have been subjected." The same situa- 
tion seems to obtain among an increasing 
number of the students in India, China and 
the Near East. Lord William Cecil takes 
the position that " it had been well for the 
world to be left with the imperfect light of 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 117 

Confucius, with the dull darkness of Bud- 
dhism, than to have been plunged into the 
hell and misery of materialism." All fair- 
minded observers of the conditions in non- 
Christian countries must admit that while 
certain of the old customs were immoral and 
bad, others had a good influence upon con- 
duct; that these ancient systems served to 
hold society together; that such commend- 
able virtues as they possessed rested upon 
old customs; but that our material civiliza- 
tion has broken down the old habits and 
methods of living, and, without doubt, has 
rooted out some of the wheat along with the 
tares. The social life of the child races of 
Africa, exposed to the inrush of a civilization 
which they cannot understand or resist, has 
been disintegrated, and these people have 
thus often been left without any restraint. 

In different parts of the non-Christian 
world women are being placed in a most 
dangerous position under the influence of the 
woman's movement of the West. The desire 
for freedom has been widely imparted before 
the women of these nations have received the 



118 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

protection of laws and conventions which 
alone make possible the safeguarding of that 
freedom. They are emerging from many 
centuries of seclusion, but have not yet been 
prepared for the larger liberty. It is indeed 
most perilous to give Western material civil- 
ization to the peoples of Asia and Africa 
without at the same time strengthening their 
moral and spiritual forces. Western civiliza- 
tion disintegrates and dissolves, and, there- 
fore, must be dangerous unless accompanied 
by a constructive work which will restore and 
reestablish the moral and religious bases of 
national life. It is of transcendent impor- 
tance that the Christians of Europe and 
America shall come to see vividly that West- 
ern civilization has thus created in Africa and 
Asia social, moral and religious problems of 
overwhelming magnitude and gravity. 

The unfavorable impression made upon 
the people of non-Christian lands while visiting 
or residing in Christian countries constitutes 
another serious aspect of our unchristian 
impact on the non-Christian world. Think 
of the influence exerted on the members of 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 119 

pagan African tribes who go to work in the 
mining compounds of South Africa. In 
Johannesburg, for example, natives cannot 
walk on the sidewalks with white men but 
must keep to the middle of the street with 
the horses and oxen. As the more indepen- 
dent and ambitious members of these tribes 
return to their people in the sub-continent or 
beyond the Zambesi, what damaging reports 
they must bear regarding the treatment they 
have received. We do well also to give 
larger heed to the feelings engendered among 
British Indians in South Africa and in British 
Columbia, among Chinese and Japanese on 
the Pacific Coast of America and among Las- 
cars visiting European ports. A Hindu in 
commenting on the treatment which some 
of his people had received in one of these 
Christian lands asked, " Wherein is it better 
than the treatment given the pariah by the 
Brahman?" The unsympathetic and un- 
kind actions and the indignities to which 
certain Chinese students entering ports of 
the United States and Canada have been 
subjected, or British Indian and Egyptian 

9 



120 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

students in England and Scotland, or Jap- 
anese at times in Germany, are not forgotten. 
These picked young men return to live among 
their people, and in positions of leadership 
as statesmen, or as editors, teachers, or in 
unofficial walks of life, they constitute a great 
barrier to the spread of Christianity. It is 
not only the unchristian treatment given 
to foreign immigrants and travelers while in 
Christian lands, but also what they there see 
of the unchristian aspects of our civilization 
which likewise militates against the triumph 
of Christianity in the non-Christian world. 
As they see for themselves the shocking prac- 
tical denials of Christ in our commercial, in- 
dustrial, social and political practice they 
cannot but say, "If Christianity cannot drive 
out these devils in the lands where it has long 
been prevalent, why should we believe in it?" 
Enough has already been stated to make 
it evident that by far the greatest obstacle 
to the world-wide spread of the Christian 
religion is the unchristian impact of our 
Western civilization. That impact must be 
Christianized. There are not two sides to 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 121 

the question. This must be done because 
civilization alone will not civilize. Dr. James 
Stewart, who had had exceptional oppor- 
tunities to study the effect of the most civil- 
ized nations in their contact with Africa, 
quoted approvingly the declaration of James 
Chalmers of New Guinea: "I have never seen 
a savage whom civilization without Chris- 
tianity had succeeded in civilizing." Well 
did Dr. Stewart insist that what is needed 
throughout the Dark Continent is a Chris- 
tian civilization, "not a non-Christian one 
with the seven devils of the vices of modern 
civilization entering the house, and making 
the latter end worse than the beginning." 
What he states about Africa could be said 
with like force about Asia and other parts of 
the non-Christian world. 

The impact of our Western civilization 
must be Christianized because that civiliza- 
tion as now extending misrepresents us. It 
is untrue to our best. We should be true to 
our best selves as Western nations, that is, 
to our Christian life and principles. We 
should not longer stand in a false light. 



122 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

America (and the same could be said of cer- 
tain other Western nations) is Christian in its 
foundation, Christian in its traditions, Chris- 
tian in its strongest elements, Christian in 
its predominant sentiment and aspiration. 
The late Justice Brewer of the United States 
Supreme Court declared that the United 
States is not a non-religious nation but a 
Christian nation. It is the duty, therefore, 
of American Christians to see that a Chris- 
tian impression is made upon other lands by 
their country. 

We must Christianize our impact as West- 
ern nations in order to make amends for the 
evil which we have done. We have allowed 
the non-Christian peoples to see much of our 
worst; we are under obligation now to allow 
them to see more of our best. As deadly 
poison has been taken from our shores to 
these lands, so also should we bear to them 
the only sufficient antidote. The searching 
question of Lord Bryce should determine 
more largely our practice: " Are not we whose 
conquering march has destroyed the customs 
and beliefs of these backward races, are not 



IMPACT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 123 

we responsible for their future? Are not we 
bound to turn to account for their good these 
changes which we have wrought ?" 

The ultimate triumph of pure Christianity 
in non-Christian lands depends absolutely 
upon Christianizing this impact. Only a 
Christianity powerful enough to dominate 
all our social, national and international life 
and relationships will finally commend itself 
to the peoples to whom we go. It should 
solemnize us also to remember that the 
triumph of Christianity on the home field 
equally depends upon Christianizing this 
impact. If we neglect any race or people 
which may have been tainted by evils origi- 
nating among us, our sin of omission will find 
us out. If the evils which have spread from 
among us to the backward lands and races 
are not counteracted, then inevitably there 
will be in return a reactive effect of the most 
serious character. 



HOW THE IMPACT OF OUR WEST- 
ERN CIVILIZATION MAY BE 
CHRISTIANIZED 



HOW THE IMPACT OF OUR WEST- 
ERN CIVILIZATION MAY BE 
CHRISTIANIZED 

In view of the facts and considerations 
set forth in the last chapter, there is needed 
a large constructive policy which will result 
in Christianizing increasingly this impact of 
Western civilization upon the non-Christian 
world. This policy must deal with the prob- 
lem at home as well as abroad. On the 
foreign field it can best be dealt with by 
greatly expanding the missionary move- 
ment. Experience shows that this is by 
far the greatest single influence to counter- 
act the bad influences of our civilization. 
It also teaches that it is the course of wis- 
dom to preempt regions to which the evil 
influences may not yet have spread. Every 
department of missionary work is valuable 

and should be enlarged, but for the pur- 

127 



128 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

pose here in mind certain phases of the work 
may be more effective than others. On every 
field educational missions are indispensable 
to counteract unfavorable intellectual in- 
fluences exerted from Western lands. In 
fields like Africa, China and Turkey medical 
missions constitute a powerful evidence of 
the transforming influence of Christianity. 
They show its ability to re-create and build 
up the physical life of the people just as 
certain evils of the West have shown their 
deadly power to injure this life. Christian 
apologetic lectures and literature are im- 
peratively demanded in the educational 
centers of Asia and Latin America to offset 
the agnostic and rationalistic attacks upon 
the Christian positions. The spread of the 
Christian Student Movement, especially 
among the vast government student popula- 
tions, can possibly do more than any other 
one factor to influence right thinking and 
right relationships among the leaders of to- 
morrow. 

Doubtless the most potent single influence 
exerted by the missionary is through the 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 129 

object lesson of his home. Each missionary 
home is a center of vital contagion. Who can 
measure the power of even one devoted, 
Christlike missionary? He is an example 
and a convincing apologetic of the truth of 
his religion. He is an interpreter to non- 
Christian peoples of the best side of our 
Western civilization. He is an ambassador 
of all that is most truly Christian in our life. 
He is a teacher and a leader of the forces of 
righteousness. Even in the sphere of his 
daily calling and of his regular missionary 
activity he does more than all other factors 
to offset the deadly influence of the unchris- 
tian aspects of Western civilization. It is 
desirable, however, that more missionaries 
be led to seek directly to overcome the great 
evils due to the unchristian impact of our 
civilization. Who can overstate the extent 
of the good accomplished by Bishop Brent 
by throwing himself into the antiopium 
propaganda, in connection with which he 
acquired a position of unique leadership. 
The influence of Livingstone in making pos- 
sible the abolition of the slave traffic was 



130 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

greater than that of hundreds of men of 
strength in other walks of life. 

Special efforts should be put forth to sur- 
round with good influences the men who go 
out to represent us in commercial and other 
secular pursuits. These men are exposed 
to special temptations and dangers. Often 
the very climate is unfavorable to the main- 
tenance of the highest efficiency. Moreover, 
our young men are thrown in the midst of 
strange civilizations and removed from the 
restraining influence of the ideals, standards, 
customs, institutions and associations of 
Christian lands. Add to this the fact that 
they are often isolated from their fellows, 
and it is not strange that so many of them 
succumb to the temptations to which they 
are subjected. In these new lands they find 
virtually all the old temptations with which 
we are familiar in the West, but manifesting 
themselves, especially in the port cities of 
the non-Christian world, with much more 
intensity and subtlety. Besides these they 
are called upon to face certain temptations 
which are entirely new to them. It is not 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 131 

surprising that there are so many examples of 
moral collapse and wreckage, and of lapses 
from the Christian faith. The gravestones 
in the cemeteries that surround the port 
cities tell the story. The men who do not 
yield to temptation are the exceptions. In 
certain of these cities the young men of 
Europe and America who have lived there 
for a time and have yielded to the prevailing 
temptations, challenge the newcomer and 
predict that within so many weeks he too will 
become a prey to the same influences. This 
proves to be sadly true in far too many cases. 
The Young Men's Christian Association 
has shown itself to be an agency specially 
adapted to help the young men of the West 
under these trying circumstances. It min- 
isters helpfully to all sides of their nature. 
It affords pleasant and profitable occupations 
for their leisure hours. It introduces them 
into the best companionships and society. 
It opens up opportunities for unselfish serv- 
ice. It wages uncompromising warfare 
against the enemies of young men. Being 
a world brotherhood with branches estab- 



132 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

lished in nearly all cities of the world, it is 
able to pass young men on from center to 
center, and to introduce them to reliable and 
interested people everywhere. It should be 
more widely extended, and should be pro- 
vided with good buildings and able secre- 
taries in every port city, as well as in every 
other center where any considerable number 
of young men from the West congregate. 
Moreover, it is hoped that the day will come 
when similar facilities may be afforded for 
the more limited numbers of representatives 
of the West who gather in army and navy 
posts, mining camps, manufacturing centers, 
oil fields and political capitals. 

There is need of multiplying and maintain- 
ing more generously ably led churches for Eu- 
ropean and American communities in Asia, 
Africa and Latin America. What has been 
done in certain port cities of the Far East 
shows the rare value of this agency. Con- 
structive work of this kind, promoted under 
the guidance of the Committee on Providing 
Churches for Anglo-American Communities 
in Mission Fields, should be supported much 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 133 

more generously by the Christians of different 
denominations. Similar provision should be 
made for representatives of the countries of 
the Continent of Europe. There is demand 
also for better treatment of "the domiciled 
communities" in India. These communities 
include all persons of English blood and de- 
scent in whatever degree who speak English, 
and have made or intend to make their home 
in India. The Roman Catholic Church has 
done better in this respect than the Protes- 
tant bodies. During the past thirty years 
in India the number of its communicants 
among this class has greatly increased, where- 
as among Protestants there has been an an- 
nual falling off. 

More missionaries should open their homes 
to the young men of the foreign communities. 
If necessary their Boards should provide 
them with an additional allowance to make 
possible the entertainment and cultivation 
of these young men from the West. The 
Boards should also instruct their new mis- 
sionaries so that they will recognize that they 
owe a Christian duty to every European and 



134 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

American, as well as to the Asiatics or Africans 
to whom they go. Through all these varied 
activities the objective should be not alone 
to conserve the character and faith of the 
young men of the West who represent us in 
commerce, in industry, in government service 
and in other relations, but also to wield them 
as a force in advancing the interests of Chris- 
tianity. To this end they should be edu- 
cated regarding Christian missions, and 
should be related to definite opportunities 
for service where their particular gifts and 
experience can be made to count most. 

The official representatives of Western 
Christian nations or governments should 
maintain high Christian standards in all 
their dealings with the non-Christian peoples. 
A Christian nation should practise Chris- 
tianity just as truly as should an individual. 
It was said of Gladstone: "He resisted with 
his whole might the odious contention that 
moral progress in the relations of nations and 
states to one another is an illusion and a 
dream." John Hay wrote the name of 
America high in the Far East when he in- 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 135 

sisted that the Golden Rule should apply to 
nations as well as to individuals. President 
Wilson is standing with great devotion for 
the same policy in all international relations. 
Toward the non-Christian nations, whether 
they be strong or weak, we should exercise a 
spirit of restraint, of generous confidence in 
their good-will, and of unselfish regard for 
their interests. This is the secret of overcom- 
ing any feeling of alienation. We should 
treat backward races and nations with jus- 
tice, sympathy and kindness. No race should 
be regarded as inferior. The aim should be to 
do what is for the good of these people and 
not for our own selfish advantage. Ambas- 
sadors and consuls should be men of high 
character. It is nothing less than a sin to 
send one whose life contradicts the principles 
and spirit of Christianity to represent a Chris- 
tian land in a non-Christian country. It 
would be difficult to exaggerate the good 
accomplished by such civilians as S. Wells 
Williams at Peking, Consul-general Wilder 
in different parts of the Far East, Governor 

Forbes in the Philippine Islands, or of men 
10 



136 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

like the Lawrences, or like Sir Herbert 
Edwardes, Sir Charles Eliot and Sir Mack- 
worth Young in India. A worthy influence 
has also been exerted for all that is best in 
our civilization by the object lesson and 
testimony when visiting non-Christian lands 
of such men as Senator Root, Colonel 
Roosevelt, Lord Bryce, and Mr. Bryan. 

The impact of our Western civilization 
must be Christianized, not only where this 
impact is made in the non-Christian world, 
but also where it is made at the home base 
or in the nominally Christian lands. Much 
more attention must be given to immigrants 
from the non-Christian countries. There are 
now in the United States about seventy-five 
thousand Chinese and about the same num- 
ber of Japanese, nearly five thousand British 
Indians and a few hundreds of Koreans, Fili- 
pinos and natives of other Oriental countries. 
Besides these there are large and increasing 
numbers from the Near Eastern fields of Asia 
and the needy and backward fields of Eastern 
and Southeastern Europe. Successful efforts 
have been put forth on behalf of Asiatics not 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 137 

only on the Pacific Coast and in the Hawaiian 
Islands, but also in a number of the princi- 
pal cities of the East and of the Mississippi 
Valley. All this work should be expanded 
and strengthened. It is not an impossible 
task so to develop helpful agencies now em- 
ployed that virtually every one of these Asi- 
atic immigrants may be surrounded with 
definitely Christian influences. 

The present is a most critical moment in 
the relations of countries like the United 
States, Canada, Australia and South Africa, 
to Oriental immigrants. Nothing is to be 
gained by minimizing the gravity of the 
situation. Serious as the problem is, it can 
be solved. How important it is that we 
hold the trust and friendship of Japan and 
China through the kindly courtesies and just 
treatment of their representatives among us. 
The Christians of America possess the key 
to the solution of the problem. Count Okuma 
was right in the statement which he made 
several months ago in Tokyo that this prob- 
lem cannot be solved by warfare, diplomacy 
or legislation, but only by the Christians of 



138 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

America applying their principles to these 
practical problems of international life. Men 
of the largest influence in public life must 
be led to give profound study to the racial 
problems from the point of view of Jesus 
Christ. This should become the subject of 
earnest inquiry on the part of editors, clergy- 
men and educators. If these leaders of 
thought and action have right views and are 
animated by the proper spirit, then the large 
body of citizens of the land will be led to wise 
action. 

Nothing less than a comprehensive cam- 
paign of education and friendship must be 
waged up and down the whole land to create 
and maintain a right attitude and feeling 
toward other races. At present the attitude 
of most of the people is characterized too 
much by haughtiness, a sense of superiority 
and a feeling of suspicion and fear. It is 
evident that they think of the people of other 
lands and races too much as aliens. This 
betokens aloofness and conflicts with the 
Christian ideal according to which there are 
"no more strangers and foreigners" but only 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 139 

"fellow citizens." This lends large signifi- 
cance to the helpful activities of organizations 
like the Japan Society and like the Pan- 
American Union. An enormous service is 
also being rendered by such agencies as the 
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 
the Church Peace Union, the World Peace 
Foundation, and the American Association 
for International Conciliation. The visits of 
representatives of these societies and of ex- 
change professors, such as President Jordan 
of Leland Stanford University, Dr. Ham- 
ilton Mabie, ex-President Eliot, Professor 
Francis Peabody, Dr. Nitobe a'nd Baron 
Kikuchi, have been of incalculable value 
in promoting right thinking and feeling 
on the part of different races toward each 
other. That race will be most blessed which 
gives to all the other races of its very best 
with generous hand, not in fear and not with 
ulterior motives but with sincere recognition 
of all that is good in others and with unself- 
ish motives; and which in all its intercourse 
tries to see with the other's eyes and to sym- 
pathize with the other's hopes. 



140 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Even more important is it that the Chris- 
tians of the West promote friendly relations 
among foreign students now pursuing their 
studies among us. There are large student 
migrations from non-Christian lands to the 
United States. While the number of Japa- 
nese in American schools and colleges may 
not be quite as large as it was in the 'SO's of 
the last century, nevertheless there are at the 
present time probably not less than twelve 
hundred Japanese students in these institu- 
tions. The number of British Indians study- 
ing in America is larger than ever and bids 
fair to continue to increase. Within a decade 
the number of Chinese students in American 
colleges and universities has increased from a 
few scores to over one thousand. It may 
surprise many to know that there are also in 
the colleges of the United States over fifteen 
hundred Latin-American students. The 
number from Near-Eastern countries, while 
not large, is growing. These foreign students 
will, on their return to their native lands, 
wield an influence out of all proportion to 
their number. From their ranks will come 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 141 

many of the leaders in all the more important 
walks of life. Happily these coming leaders 
of non-Christian nations are peculiarly ac- 
cessible and responsive to friendship while 
they are strangers in a strange land. 

The best agency for dealing with these 
large and increasing numbers of foreign stu- 
dents is that of the Christian Student Move- 
ments among both men students and women 
students. Efficient and fruitful as has been 
their work in the past, the time has come 
when these organizations should plan more 
comprehensively to influence for Christ this 
important class of students. In individual 
cities or universities where large numbers of 
foreign students from one or more countries 
are concentrated, it is desirable that local 
secretaries be employed to give all of their 
time to this work, as is done, for example, in 
New York, Berlin and London. At certain 
ports of embarkation from which the stu- 
dents sail in largest numbers special work for 
foreign students should be undertaken similar 
to that conducted so successfully by the 
Young Men's Christian Association in Shang- 



142 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

hai. There a secretary for foreign students 
is stationed who serves these young men and 
women in every way in his power. There are 
certain ports of arrival where it is more prac- 
ticable to organize a helpful work on behalf 
of foreign students. Beginnings in such work 
have been made at San Francisco, New York 
and London. Here the new students should 
all be given a friendly welcome and every 
facility be placed at their disposal. 

The principal work and influence must be 
brought to bear upon these strangers in the 
particular city or university where they 
spend their student life. The Christian As- 
sociation in each university or college where 
there is even one foreign student should 
recognize and discharge its responsibility 
toward him. There are hundreds of colleges 
in which there are from five to one hundred 
or more foreign students. The Association 
should ensure their receiving the most 
thoughtful attention during the opening days 
of their student career in a foreign land. A 
list of desirable boarding houses which will 
receive foreign students should be prepared 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 143 

and placed at the disposal of the newcomers. 
Care should be exercised to put them where 
their fellow lodgers will be of the right sort. 
In some of the great cities special hostels for 
foreign students should be established, pro- 
vided these be properly managed. Appro- 
priate social attention and special courtesies 
should be extended to them. Both during 
term time and in vacations they should be 
given access to some of the best homes in the 
country. Experience shows that this has 
been one of the most potent means of im- 
pressing for good young men and young 
women from foreign lands. It is gratifying 
to see that at the suggestion of the Christian 
Student Associations the homes of some of 
the most distinguished citizens are being 
opened for such purposes. 

The members of the Christian Associations 
in the West need instruction in order to 
remove their ignorance and often resulting 
discourtesy in their relations to foreign stu- 
dents. Everything possible should be done 
to overcome race prejudice. It is shameful 
to hear how some foreign students have been 



144 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

treated by those who should have considered 
themselves as hosts and friends. These 
young men and young women from abroad 
need persons who will actually befriend them, 
teach them Western ways, help them to over- 
come their first strangeness and serve as 
interpreters of the best side of the life of the 
country in which they are sojourning. Where 
there is a Cosmopolitan Club it is desirable 
that some of the leaders of the Christian 
Association identify themselves with its 
activities, for this will serve to multiply 
points of helpful contact with the students of 
other lands and races. The foreign students 
should be enlisted in Bible classes, investiga- 
tion circles, and discussion groups for the 
purpose of making them acquainted with 
Christ and His principles. Professors and 
students of recognized scholastic standing, of 
intellectual ability, of tact and of genuine 
religious experience should be appointed to 
lead the groups. It is this intensive work 
which counts most. 

These foreign students should be led to 
join the Christian Association and should be 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 145 

brought under the influence of its social 
service activities as well as of the work of the 
Church. In fact, they should be made more 
familiar with the spiritual side of the civiliza- 
tion of the country than with any other. 
Above all, there should be much friendly per- 
sonal work done with them. The best results 
follow from this siege work, in connection 
with which one Christian student comes to 
know in a very intimate way at least one 
foreign student and uses every opportunity 
to influence him spiritually. We should not 
stop short of leading these students from 
abroad into vital union with Christ and His 
Church, and into the formation of such habits 
as will ensure their adhering to their new 
purposes when they return to their native 
land and are exposed again to its temptations 
and, it may be, to its persecutions. If this 
campaign of friendship be made sufficiently 
comprehensive and continuous to embrace 
every foreign student who comes among us, 
the result will be of the most profound and 
far-reaching importance. Possibly no one 
thing can be done by Christian forces which 



146 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

will do more to accomplish our great end. 
In this connection attention should be 
called likewise to the vital importance of the 
leaders of the Churches and of the Christian 
agencies giving special attention to dis- 
tinguished visitors from these non-Christian 
countries. 

More should be done to see that the right 
kind of men are sent out to represent Chris- 
tian lands in the commercial and industrial 
activities in the non-Christian world. From 
a business point of view it would be greatly 
to the advantage of business concerns, in 
selecting managers, agents and salesmen 
to represent them in these lands, to apply a 
character test as well as that of astuteness 
and efficiency in business matters. If even 
Christian business houses did their duty in 
this respect it would effect a marvelous 
change for the better in the commercial im- 
pact of the West. It should be burned in 
upon the leaders of these corporations and 
companies that a Christian business concern 
which sends out a dissolute man to represent 
it in a non-Christian country is disloyal to 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 147 

the Christian faith. The question is raised 
whether the ushering in of a better day in 
this respect might not best be accomplished 
through such an efficient interdenomina- 
tional agency as the Laymen's Missionary 
Movement. This Movement unites thou- 
sands of the most progressive and influential 
Christian laymen in all Churches. It has 
acquired a valuable experience which has 
given it the confidence of men of affairs. 
Were it to take hold of this matter with wis- 
dom and earnestness, its voice would cer- 
tainly be heeded. 

It is of transcendent importance that all 
the Christian forces be brought to bear on 
Christianizing our own civilization at home. 
If we wish to wage a triumphant warfare at 
the front we must have no untaken forts in 
our rear. It is well ever to remember that 
keen-eyed representatives of non-Christian 
lands are traveling and dwelling among us 
and see the unchristian aspects of our social 
order. It is not sufficient to explain to 
them that these are due not to Christ but 
to the lack of Christ and to the lack of 



148 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

the application of His principles. A demon- 
stration must be afforded of His ability to 
conquer the areas of social injustice and 
neglect within our own borders. Christ must 
dominate our unchristian social conditions, 
not only because of the bad example we 
present through them, but also because such 
a victory is essential to our own largest vital- 
ity and helpfulness in the task of the world- 
wide spread of Christianity. As Robert E. 
Speer has pointed out, "It is vain to send out 
little bands over the world to preach the 
Gospel of purity and peace, love and power, 
if in our social, industrial and racial condi- 
tions in America we are preaching unclean- 
ness, strife, enmity and failure." No one 
can easily overstate the power of the apolo- 
getic which a thoroughly Christianized Amer- 
ica would present and exercise in the non- 
Christian world. 

Finally, Christians must come to feel a 
deeper sense of personal responsibility to do 
all in their power to help Christianize this 
impact. It has become easy for Christians 
to avoid assuming obligation for the state 



CHRISTIANIZING THE IMPACT 149 

of society or civilization, but in the light of 
the example and teachings of Jesus it is im- 
possible to escape such responsibility. There 
must be such an awakening and quickening 
of conscience among Christians throughout 
the Churches as shall lead to an uprising to 
prevent the spread of these evils among us 
which are contrary to Christ and His holy 
name and principles. In this connection 
there is need of Christians living more con- 
stantly under the sense of immediacy. If 
the evidence is wide-spread that the touch 
of Western civilization without Christianity 
does harm, then it is nothing less than sin- 
ful for Christians to say of fields like China, 
Turkey and Africa, as they virtually have 
done in the case of Japan, "we will wait until 
these great fields are injured before we take 
adequate steps to avert such a calamity." 
Moreover, Christians should lead in such 
prompt and wide expansion of the Christian 
religion that they may preempt vast regions 
to which the vices and sins of corrupt civili- 
zation have not yet spread. This is a mo- 
ment when the Gospel should come to these 



150 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

peoples both as a beneficent power protect- 
ing them from the deadly evils of other lands 
and as a pure religion releasing among them 
new energy and vitality. 



HOW TO ENSURE CLOSER CO- 
OPERATION AND UNITY ON 
THE PART OF CHRISTIAN 
FORCES 



11 



VI 

HOW TO ENSURE CLOSER CO- 
OPERATION AND UNITY ON 
THE PART OF CHRISTIAN 
FORCES 

Christian missions present the most strik- 
ing example of Christian unity and co-opera- 
tion to be found anywhere in the world. 
The drawing together of Christian forces in 
all mission lands is one of the most charac- 
teristic and encouraging facts of the time. 
It manifests itself in many ways. It is ob- 
servable in the growing spirit and practice of 
comity. The principles of comity are now to 
a greater or less degree accepted and observed 
on virtually every mission field. It is ob- 
servable likewise in the plans for districting 
or dividing different mission fields, such as 
Korea, West China, Mexico and the Philip- 
pines. Another illustration is the countless 
interdenominational conferences, local, sec- 
tional and national, which are being held by 

153 



154 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

missionaries and native workers on the dif- 
ferent fields. Certain interdenominational 
movements, such as the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association, the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association, the Christian Endeavor 
Society, the Sunday School Union, all of 
which are rendering valuable service to the 
Churches, illustrate and markedly promote 
the spirit and practice of concerted action. 

Missions and Churches are co-operating 
increasingly in various forms of mission- 
ary activity. They join with freedom in all 
parts of the world for the translation, pub- 
lication and distribution of the Scriptures. 
In like manner they have formed scores of 
societies for the preparation and circulation 
of Christian literature. In medical educa- 
tion, in the preparation of medical text-books 
and in the conduct of hospitals they find it 
practicable and advantageous to join. In 
innumerable forms of philanthropic and 
Christian social betterment work they are 
associating their efforts. Joint action is being 
taken increasingly by different Christian 
communions in planning and conducting edu- 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 155 

cational institutions; for example, the num- 
ber of Christian union colleges and universi- 
ties is increasing at a rapid rate. Some Chris- 
tian bodies are finding it possible to unite 
even in theological education. The largest 
and most fruitful evangelistic campaigns owe 
their success to the fact that Christians of 
different names join forces and present a 
united front. Meetings for united interces- 
sion are becoming common throughout the 
mission world. 

The Churches themselves are being drawn 
together. In some fields this takes the form 
of a federation of Churches. In others there 
has been an organic union effected by various 
denominations belonging to the same family; 
for example, the uniting of the various bodies 
of Anglicans in China, of Methodists in Japan, 
and of Presbyterians in India. On some mis- 
sion fields the movement toward church 
unity has been carried still further; for exam- 
ple, in South India several Churches of dif- 
ferent ecclesiastical families have formed the 
"United Church of South India." On the 
home field it is observable that the drawing 



156 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

together of Christians is far more advanced 
with reference to the foreign missionary ac- 
tivities than in connection with any other 
department of work; for instance, the Annual 
Conferences of representatives of the Foreign 
Mission Boards and their various supporting 
missionary movements, such as the Student 
Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 
the Missionary Education Movement, and 
the Laymen's Missionary Movement. 

One of the most significant recent develop- 
ments in this important direction was the 
creation at the Edinburgh Conference of the 
Continuation Committee which unites, as it 
were, all the foreign missionary forces par- 
ticipating in that most notable missionary 
gathering ever held. In this Committee and 
its many Special Committees the leaders of 
the Missionary Societies on both sides of the 
Atlantic are constantly collaborating in in- 
vestigation and in wise ways are facilitating 
the work of co-ordination and co-operation. 
Similar committees have quite recently been 
organized on each of the principal mission 
fields of Asia to promote like common under- 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 157 

standing and action on the part of all the 
Missions and Churches. 

Notwithstanding the really remarkable 
progress which has been made throughout 
the foreign missionary enterprise, both at the 
front and at the home base, the present world 
situation demands that the Christians of our 
day enter into far closer and more efficient co- 
operation and into a more vital unity. The 
magnitude of the task renders this impera- 
tive. With a situation which is literally 
world-wide in its extent and all parts of which 
have to be dealt with simultaneously, the 
only hope of coping with it with any degree 
of adequacy is by concerted plan and effort. 
The overwhelming difficulty of the undertak- 
ing demands more intimate co-operation and 
a more real unity. Face to face with the 
powerfully entrenched systems of the non- 
Christian religions nothing less than unity 
of spirit and action can prevail. 

The unity for which Christ prayed is essen- 
tial to a convincing apologetic. In the pres- 
ence of a world which is unbelieving to an 
extent and to a depth which is fairly over- 



158 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

powering, we must have the mighty and con- 
vincing evidence which Christ obviously had 
in mind when He prayed that we all might be 
one. An unbelieving world is the price paid 
for a divided Christendom. Unity is not to be 
regarded as an end in itself but as a means 
to the realization of the great objective of the 
conversion of the world. The urgency of the 
world situation enforces the importance of 
larger co-operation and unity on the part of 
the Christian forces. It were an idle dream 
to talk of counteracting the alarming perils 
of our day, of entering the marvelous doors of 
opportunity which are ajar in every field, and 
of taking advantage of the many favoring 
influences and movements which so character- 
ize our time, unless we effect some more com- 
prehensive and efficient unification of the 
different divisions of the Christian army. At 
such a time, if ever, the trouble and the sinful 
waste of time, money and effort due to any 
overlapping or duplication should be avoided. 
On parts of some great mission fields there 
are doubtless a sufficient number of mis- 
sionaries to accomplish the thorough plant- 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 159 

ing of Christianity provided they were 
redistributed and properly related to one 
another by a unified plan. 

The lack of unity goes far to explain the 
disappointing weakness in much missionary 
strategy. In visiting some mission fields to- 
day one might still receive the impression that 
there were thirty or more separate armies all 
moving toward a common goal but without a 
common strategy. In view of the remark- 
able recent victories of Christianity in the 
non-Christian world even without united 
strategy one wonders what would come to 
pass as a result of entering into a truer unity. 
It would without doubt lead to a speedy and 
complete occupation of the wide field. 

There is growing conviction among Chris- 
tian leaders and thoughtful observers in dif- 
ferent parts of the world that it is not neces- 
sary or desirable to reproduce on the mission 
field many of the denominational and eccle- 
siastical differences of the West, not a few 
of which are occidental, incidental and un- 
essential, and some of which are absurd when 
transplanted to the Orient. It is to be 



160 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

feared that some of them are even unchris- 
tian, judged by Christ's principles and by 
results. Too often they confuse the Chris- 
tians, weaken testimony, and are a stumbling 
block to the non-Christians. Bishop Sel- 
wyn's words are weighty: "We make a rule 
never to introduce controversy among a 
native people. My observation, covering 
one-half of the Pacific Islands, has shown 
that wherever this law of religious unity is 
observed, there the Gospel is in its full un- 
checked and undivided power." The great 
object on every mission field is not to perpet- 
uate unnecessary denominational distinctions 
of Christendom, but to build up on scriptural 
lines the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

In view of the overwhelming need for a 
much closer drawing together of all those en- 
gaged in the work of extending the Christian 
religion throughout the world, it is well to 
ponder the question, How bring about closer 
co-operation and unity? This question can 
best be answered by fixing attention upon 
those processes by which a larger unity may 
be realized. In the first place, Christians of 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 161 

different names should cultivate the habit of 
reminding themselves that they are one. One 
in union with Christ as the source of their 
life, one in dominant desire to become more 
like Him, and one in the inspiring objective 
to make His reign co-extensive with the entire 
inhabited earth — being one in these most 
vital things they are one, whether at times 
they think they are or not, and whether at 
times they feel that they are or not. A 
citizen of one country who for many years 
lives in some foreign land may be out of touch 
with much that concerns his native land and 
may have a very hazy idea of the require- 
ments of citizenship there, but this, however, 
does not invalidate the fact that he is still 
a. citizen of his country. A son may have 
moved from his parent's home when but a 
lad and have lived away from it so long that 
he does not remember clearly his own father 
and mother, and may never have seen some 
of his own brothers and sisters, but this does 
not change the fact that he is still a mem- 
ber of that family. It is well that Christians 
keep dwelling on the fact that they are one 



162 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

with all Christians who acknowledge in truth 
the deity of Our Lord. 

Another process or duty of Christians, if 
they are to enter into the larger unity so much 
demanded, is that of sincere repentance and 
confession. If we dwell upon our lack of 
unity and love the sense of its sinfulness will 
deepen within us. While recognizing God's 
free mercies and blessings even in spite of 
much intolerance, uncharitableness and pride 
on our part, let us not obscure the fact that 
such things are wrong in the sight of Christ 
and in the light of His purposes. Not until 
we realize this with sufficient poignancy to 
bring forth fruits meet for repentance are we 
likely to pay the other prices which have to be 
paid to accomplish the drawing together of 
all true Christians in triumphant unity. As 
we think, therefore, of our sins of aloofness, 
self-satisfaction and haughtiness, and likewise 
of our sins of the tongue, let us make frank 
confession and turn from them. Christians 
should not speak lightly or superficially of 
the advantages of their divisions. Such bene- 
fits as they may think themselves able to 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 163 

trace to disunion are not so much due to 
division as in spite of it. 

The time has come when Christians should 
busy themselves more with the process of 
considering and seeking to understand the 
differences which separate them from one 
another and the causes which have brought 
about these differences. It is well for a Chris- 
tian to make it a rule to try to put himself in 
the position of those who differ from him. 
We should also try to learn from one another. 
Thus we can help to develop what the Bishop 
of Oxford, in speaking of the Edinburgh Con- 
ference, so happily characterized as the at- 
mosphere in which "we come to loathe to 
differ and to determine to understand." All 
this lends significance to the proposal to hold 
within a few years a World Conference on 
Faith and Order. Possibly even more im- 
portant than this proposed conference is the 
thorough educational campaign in prepara- 
tion for it. It will be well to keep in touch 
with the literature issued in connection with 
this movement, also with such periodical lit- 
erature a§ the Constructive Quarterly and the 



164 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

International Review of Missions, which en- 
able us to obtain a better understanding of 
Christian bodies and agencies with which we 
may not seem to have much if anything in 
common. 

The process of comprehension should also 
be much emphasized. What is desired, to 
use an expression of the Archbishop of York 
as amplified by the Bishop of Bombay, is 
"not compromise for the sake of peace and 
success, but comprehension for the sake of 
truth and life." What is needed is not the 
oneness and dullness and unproductivity of 
uniformity, but unity with diversity and free- 
dom; not undenominationalism but interde- 
nominationalism. There is all the difference 
in the world between the two. If the mis- 
sionary movement is to have really conquer- 
ing power it needs something much more 
vertebrate, something with much more rich- 
ness, life and power than undenominational- 
ism. In the unity to be promoted, therefore, 
we would emphasize not a minimum of belief 
but a maximum, preserving all that is true or 
vital and vitalizing. Thus we seek not to 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 165 

surrender or abolish or to minimize our differ- 
ences but to compose them. Differences of 
conviction, diversities of administration, and 
differences incident to historic development 
and racial conditions will all assume right 
proportions under the divine principle of the 
unity of the Kingdom. Such Christian unity 
is the supremacy of the whole over the parts. 
If we value rightly what we call our order, 
doctrines and ritual, it is not so much because 
these are our own that we should value them 
as because we honestly believe that they are 
true and helpful and therefore desire to have 
others know, appreciate, and receive help 
from them. Some Christians give the im- 
pression that they have a very small Christ. 
To hear them speak one would form the idea 
that they believe that Christ has revealed 
Himself wholly to their particular denomi- 
nation or communion or nationality. But 
Christ is so infinite that He requires all the 
Christian bodies which acknowledge Him as 
Lord, and all nationalities and races of the 
world, through which to reveal Himself and 
to accomplish His purposes. 



166 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

The process of transcendence is also neces- 
sary to the realization of the larger unity. 
We need to rise into the mountains and to 
spend more time there. Amid the great 
peaks of Christian experience things assume 
true perspective. In the mount of transfigu- 
ration seeing no man save Jesus only we shall 
be better able to discover our true relation- 
ship to one another. On the mount of vision 
also, from which we see the kingdoms of this 
world become the kingdoms of our Lord, we 
shall see how necessary we are to each other. 
The true path does not lie in treating our 
differences as unimportant, but in finding 
the higher point of view which transcends 
them and in which they are truly reconciled. 
Christians more and more will find in their 
common faith in God, in their common love 
for Christ, and in their common purpose 
toward mankind, a power of union which 
will be irresistible and triumphant. 

By traveling the pathway of intercession 
we find ourselves drawing more closely to- 
gether. Christ was familiar with the prob- 
lem of division and disunion. His solution 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 167 

was strikingly original and unique. He sum- 
moned men to prayer. That there might be 
no ambiguity about His wish He set the 
example by embodying in the heart of His 
high priestly prayer the petition that all His 
followers might be one. This clearly shows 
that He regards the drawing together of His 
followers as a superhuman work, which can 
be accomplished only through divine assist- 
ance in answer to prayer. This suggests the 
capital distinction between His method of 
meeting the problem and ours. We have 
failed to follow His example and therefore the 
bringing together into vital oneness of those 
who bear His name has been long delayed. 

Doubtless many are not praying for other 
Christians and for Christian unity because 
they have been ignorant of His clearly re- 
vealed will on the subject. Others have not 
done so because of practical unbelief. Not 
to pray shows they think that in some way 
by the use of their own schemes, numbers and 
power, unity can be achieved; whereas were 
they to give themselves to prayer it would 
show that they humbly and truly recognize 

13 



168 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

that God only can accomplish this wonder- 
work. Many others do not pray because 
they have allowed themselves to become so 
occupied with other things that this, the most 
important of all means, is left unutilized. 
Christians everywhere should seek to develop 
this comparatively latent talent of interces- 
sion. When Christians of different names, 
especially those who are not in sympathy 
with one another, begin to pray for each 
other, they will find that they cannot long 
continue in such intercession without begin- 
ning to work in the direction of the answer 
to their own prayers. 

By promoting genuine fellowship among 
leaders and members of various Missions and 
Churches the progress of the cause of co- 
operation and unity is greatly advanced. 
Real unity is based upon intimate knowledge, 
confidence and affection, and all this is the 
result of seeing much of each other in close 
fellowship. Unity of heart must precede any 
more formal unity. Christ left His disciples 
a unit because of the intimate fellowship 
which He fostered among them. The apos- 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 169 

ties and other early Christians wonderfully 
perpetuated this spirit. This was one of the 
secrets of the rapid spread of Christianity 
during the early generations. Even in the 
political relations between nations a formal 
treaty is not so satisfactory and vital as the 
entente cordiale y or union of hearts. There- 
fore, let us welcome increasing travel by dep- 
utations which are visiting various mission 
fields, the interchange of visits between ad- 
ministrators of Mission Boards on both sides 
of the Atlantic, the multiplication of inter- 
denominational and international conferences 
of leaders of the Christian forces. 

Sometimes one wonders whether so many 
conferences and congresses are worth while; 
but where they are well planned and ably led 
and where there is some serious and high end 
to serve, experience shows that they are 
abundantly worth while. It is not so much 
because of their value for legislative, educa- 
tional and inspirational purposes as because 
they serve to create an atmosphere, an atti- 
tude, a spirit, a disposition which make pos- 
sible the larger discovery of the will of God 



170 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

and the greater obedience to that will. In 
an interview with the Archbishop of the 
Roman Catholic Church in South India, I 
asked him what he considered to be the secret 
of bringing about Christian unity. He re- 
plied, "First, we must pray for it; secondly, 
the exercise of gentleness and courtesy; third- 
ly, we must see more of each other." 

Christians of different communions by 
keeping before them the colossal task in- 
volved in making Christ known and obeyed 
throughout the world will find themselves 
being irresistibly drawn together. Just as 
a war fuses together a great and complex 
nation, even its differing and conflicting 
political parties, so a true and definite con- 
ception of the magnitude and difficulty of 
the task involved in the world's conquest 
will tend to bind together all those who have 
at heart this undertaking. It would be diffi- 
cult to exaggerate the federative power of a 
great and difficult objective. This has been 
shown in a most striking way by the influence 
of the watchword of the Student Volunteer 
Movement, namely, The Evangelization of 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 171 

the World in This Generation. This lofty 
and sublime ideal, this which one has happily 
called a possible impossible, has done more 
than any other one idea to unify the aggres- 
sive Christian forces among the students of 
all the Churches in the different nations. 
This goes far also to explain the mighty power 
for unity exerted by the Edinburgh Confer- 
ence which was really the first occasion when 
the leaders of all the missionary forces have 
come together to face the wholeness of the 
task and the oneness of the task in its infinite 
complexity. 

Possibly in no other way more than by 
undertaking to do definite pieces of work 
together do the Christians of different bodies 
come to recognize the true unity which 
already exists between them. To do one 
thing unitedly suggests and makes more 
easily possible the doing of other things to- 
gether. The number of things which Chris- 
tians have been doing together has increased 
from decade to decade in a geometrical ratio. 
From present indications the decade which 
was ushered in by the Edinburgh Conference 



172 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

will transcend by far all preceding periods in 
the number and importance of union enter- 
prises undertaken by different Missions and 
Churches. Leaders do well, therefore, to con- 
tinue to look for tasks which can best and can 
only be done together. In all such activity 
the end in view will not be unity so much as 
the larger good to mankind which such unity 
makes possible. This process of doing things 
together serves tojbreak down divisions, to 
promote mutual knowledge and respect, to 
afford convincing evidence of the benefits of 
union, to remove unbelief as to its practi- 
cability, and to make the cause of unity truly 
contagious. 

The great need of the hour is that for apos- 
tles of reconciliation. Christians must not 
be contented to stop with a realizing sense of 
the advantages of unity, with a feeling of re- 
sponsiveness to this noble ideal, and with an 
inspiring vision of what it would mean to 
have it spread widely throughout the world, 
but they must do all in their power to pro- 
mote unity. Each one can do much. What 
should characterize these apostles of unity 



CO-OPERATION AND UNITY 173 

and reconciliation? They should be men of 
catholic mind and of conciliatory spirit. They 
should be men of large and growing knowl- 
edge of church history and of reverential re- 
gard for God's dealings with all members of 
His family throughout the past. They should 
at the same time be men of vision who have 
their gaze fixed intently on a better day. 
They should be men of constructive ability, 
able to build their part into the great struc- 
ture. They should be men of courage and 
of undiscourageable enthusiasm, and, above 
all, they should have a passionate desire to 
realize the wish of our Lord. Political states- 
men tell us that the most difficult task of 
statesmanship is that of effecting treaties be- 
tween rival or conflicting nations, especially 
between those which have been at war with 
each other. Christ has said, "Blessed are 
the peacemakers." In quoting this beati- 
tude it is usual to emphasize the word peace, 
but has not the time come when the greater 
emphasis should be placed upon the word 
makers? We shall not drift into peace or 
unity. Christian leaders must lay aside 



174 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

their indifference, inertia and neglect with 
reference to this matter; they must arise, 
accept a burden of responsibility, and take 
the initiative in earnest constructive efforts 
to bring about a better relation between all 
who bear the Christian name. 



PRESENT POSSIBILITIES OF CO- 
OPERATION IN THE MISSION 
FIELD 



VII 

PRESENT POSSIBILITIES OF CO- 
OPERATION IN THE MISSION 
FIELD 

One of the principal impressions left on 
my mind by my recent journey through those 
Asiatic mission fields having in them three- 
fourths of the inhabitants of the non-Chris- 
tian world, especially by the series of twenty- 
one conferences of leaders over which in the 
name of the Continuation Committee I pre- 
sided, was that of the urgent necessity of 
closer co-operation on the part of all the 
Christian forces if they are to meet success- 
fully the present unprecedented situation 
throughout the Asiatic continent. At this 
time it is not my purpose to deal with the 
principles and limitations of co-operation but 
to fix attention on several aspects of the mis- 
sionary enterprise which particularly demand 
co-operative consideration and action. 

It is desirable that the different missionary 

177 



178 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

forces or agencies co-operate in the work of 
securing a comprehensive survey of the field. 
We did not go far in any one of the Con- 
tinuation Committee Conferences without 
discovering that we did not know enough. 
It became evident in the discussion of each 
subject that no one knew the facts with 
sufficient fulness and accuracy. It is not 
strange, therefore, that each of the twenty- 
one conferences voted unanimously in favor 
of a thoroughly scientific, united survey of 
the field and work in the area represented. 
There was also agreement that such surveys 
should be made periodically, the general 
period mentioned being once every ten years, 
although some urged that the interval be- 
tween surveys should not exceed five years. 
A truly comprehensive survey is essential 
before any adequate plan for occupation, or, 
in fact, before any statesmanlike action in 
other directions, can be determined. It will 
be recognized that such a gathering, arrange- 
ment and interpretation of the facts as is 
here called for, if it is to be complete and 
satisfactory, can best, if not only, be accom- 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 179 

plished by co-operative effort. For this sur- 
vey the assistance of the Continuation Com- 
mittee, which is composed of representatives 
of the missionary forces of Europe and North 
America, will be indispensable to help dis- 
cover and train suitable men to conduct 
the surveys; to place at the disposal of the 
Committee on Survey in a given field the 
lessons of experience of similar committees in 
other fields; to standardize the surveys in 
different fields to such an extent as may be 
desirable; and to bring the results of the 
surveys to the attention of those who should 
be most interested. In some countries it will 
be best to begin by conducting a model sur- 
vey of one province, or district, or city; in 
others it may be wiser to plan at once for a 
complete survey of the whole country. 

Co-operative consideration on the part of 
the various Christian bodies at work in a 
particular country is essential in order to 
determine more clearly than has ever been 
done what is meant by the adequate occu- 
pation of a field. There are few subjects on 
which there is more confusion of thought than 



180 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

on this one. Even missionaries of the same 
Society, living at a common mission station, 
were found to hold diametrically opposite 
views on the subject. It is not so surprising 
to find leaders of different Missions and com- 
munions holding widely differing views on 
certain aspects of the problem of occupation. 
Now, if we do not know where we want to go 
we are not likely to arrive at our destina- 
tion. It is doubtless too much to expect that 
all the Societies, or even all the missionaries 
of the same Society, will come to agree exactly 
on what is meant by the adequate occupation 
of a field; but it is reasonable to believe that 
as a result of co-operative consideration, that 
is, of concerted investigation and discussion, 
the number of theories or plans of occupa- 
tion can be reduced to two, three or pos- 
sibly four. This will be a great gain over the 
present confusion. Even though we find that 
the views and policies of occupation which 
certain groups of workers hold are radically 
different, it will be advantageous to know it. 
The possibilities of misunderstanding and 
friction will be reduced, and the fields con- 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 181 

cerned are much more likely to be occupied. 
To facilitate clearer thinking and a much 
more nearly common understanding on the 
subject, conferences should be held both by 
missionaries on the field and by representa- 
tives of Boards at home. There also should be 
careful writing on the principles which should 
guide as to occupation and distribution, 
and the proper application of these principles. 
The completely unoccupied fields and the 
virtually unoccupied fields of the non-Chris- 
tian world challenge and require the united 
consideration of all the Churches. It seems 
highly incongruous and startling that so 
many centuries after Christ rose from the 
dead and initiated the world-wide missionary 
movement, it should be possible for a body 
of Christian leaders to assemble, as was the 
case at the late World Missionary Conference 
in Edinburgh, and be confronted with facts 
showing so many areas totally destitute of 
the Gospel. This situation is all the more 
strange at a time when there are so many 
genuine Christians in the world that they 
might easily and fully give to all men now 



182 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

living the opportunity to learn of the living 
Christ. Different reasons might be given to 
explain why there are still so many com- 
pletely unoccupied fields, but is not the chief 
reason the fact that no one has been made 
responsible for pressing the facts and claims 
of the world's unoccupation upon the brain, 
conscience and will of Christendom? What 
is everybody's business is nobody's business. 
Therefore, let it be stated reverently, God 
has had no adequate opportunity to impress 
the facts upon the Church. 

The united surveys which have been pro- 
posed must not be regarded as ends in them- 
selves. The Continuation Committee Con- 
ferences in Asia were impatient on this point. 
They desired that their information be 
brought to the attention of the home 
Churches and Societies with reference to 
securing action. The impression was received 
in the conferences that only a small minority 
of the Missionary Societies have definite and 
recognized plans for occupying their respect- 
ive fields. Moreover, it was most disap- 
pointing to find how few had concerned them- 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 183 

selves with the matter of evolving a united 
plan for occupying the whole country. The 
time has come when the Missionary Societies 
should collectively make it clear and em- 
phatic that it is their fixed and unalterable 
purpose to stand for the planting of pure 
Christianity in every part of the non-Chris- 
tian world. It is undoubtedly the will of 
God that the whole field be occupied, and, 
however great and difficult the task, there 
are resources available in Jesus Christ and 
His Church sufficient to make possible the 
accomplishment of His perfect will. 

Experience on many mission fields em- 
phasizes the value of co-operation in the 
work of evangelization. The Continuation 
Committee Conferences brought out clearly 
the fact that the most powerful and fruitful 
evangelistic efforts have been those in which 
the various Missions and Christian agencies 
united for this purpose. In different lands 
the delegates agreed on plans calling for 
concentration evangelistic campaigns in great 
centers of population, and, in some cases, 
over wider areas. In Japan there was un- 

13 



184 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

animous action, at the suggestion of the 
Japanese Christian leaders, in favor of a 
three-years' nation-wide campaign. It is 
expected that all Churches and agencies will 
participate, each being free to co-operate in 
the ways which it deems most effective. The 
leaders in Japan desire the special co-opera- 
tion of the Missionary Societies at home in 
helping to select and send out able apologetic 
lecturers, wise evangelists and recognized au- 
thorities on methods of evangelization. 

It is of first importance that Christian 
leaders in Europe and America recognize 
that the present is one of the days of God's 
visitation in Asia, and that it is preeminently 
the time to bring to bear our united power in 
intercession and in every other way which the 
trusted workers at the front may indicate. 
The statements of the Bishop of Madras and 
those in the findings of the Indian Conferences 
regarding the marvelous opportunity pre- 
sented just now by the mass movements in 
India to influence for Christ literally tens of 
millions who will otherwise be absorbed by 
Hinduism and Mohammedanism are not 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 185 

exaggerations. If this be true, the situation 
calls for a far closer co-ordination and co- 
operation of the Christian forces that we may 
not miss the day of our visitation. 

Contrary to the popular impression the 
present opportunity in Japan is absolutely 
unequaled. At the conference held there 
in April, 1913, two questions were put to the 
Japanese Christian leaders and to the mis- 
sionaries: "Are the educated classes as ac- 
cessible now as they were in the eighties? " 
In answering, all agreed that the educated 
classes are fully as accessible now as they 
were then. The second question was, "Are 
the masses as accessible and responsive now 
as they were then? " All the Japanese work- 
ers and all but two of the missionaries agreed 
that they are more accessible and responsive 
now than at that time. This fact is not 
generally known in the West. As the pendu- 
lum swings more rapidly in Japan than in 
most countries, this is a fact of large and 
urgent significance. Only prompt and con- 
certed effort on the part of all Societies re- 
lated to this field will avail. 



186 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Far more vast and quite as urgent is the 
evangelistic opportunity presented to-day in 
China. During my three previous visits to 
China within the last twenty years I found 
nothing approaching in ripeness for evangel- 
istic effort the fields visited in that land last 
year. In South China, in North China, in 
East China and in the heart of China, the 
field among government students as well as 
among other classes was dead ripe unto har- 
vest. The Confucian reaction which has set 
in has not seriously contracted the oppor- 
tunity; in fact, it is serving the great advan- 
tage of compelling men to count the cost 
more thoroughly. It is an idle dream to 
think of meeting such a colossal situation as 
that presented by the evangelistic oppor- 
tunity in virtually every province of China 
and in the Chinese colonies by anything less 
than union in plan and effort on the part of 
Christ's messengers. 

In every field there is a clamant demand 
for a much larger number of able native 
Christian workers and leaders. In fact, noth- 
ing short of an army of well-qualified sons 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 187 

and daughters of the soil will suffice to meet 
the demands of the Church. What is the 
secret of obtaining them? While the mission 
schools and colleges constitute the principal 
recruiting ground, the agency which has 
proved itself most effective in influencing 
young men and young women to devote their 
lives to Christian service is the Student Chris- 
tian Movement. This has been shown con- 
clusively by the Student Volunteer Move- 
ment in North America, the British Isles, 
Australasia and South Africa, and in certain 
parts of the Continent. Recently the same 
plan has been tried in China, where during 
the last five years the Student Volunteer 
Movement has led more Chinese students to 
decide to enter the ministry than have been 
secured in as many decades before in that 
country, and also more than have been 
secured in the other non-Christian countries 
during the same half decade. This is a co- 
operative or interdenominational movement. 
There is something which can be secured 
through esprit de corps, through consciousness 
of unity and of strength of numbers, through 



188 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

common purpose and fellowship, and through 
the spirit of propaganda, and which cannot be 
obtained in any other way. The Missionary 
Societies of the West, therefore, should seek 
to strengthen the hands of the rising Student 
Christian Movements among both men and 
women students, in government as well as in 
mission schools, by allocating to this service 
some of their ablest and best adapted mis- 
sionaries and native workers. 

There is a demand for better trained work- 
ers as well as for larger numbers. While the 
rank and file of the prospective native leaders 
had probably best be educated in the theo- 
logical and other training institutions of their 
respective Christian communions, there is a 
growing belief among missionaries that a 
selected company of the best of these stu- 
dents should receive advanced or post-grad- 
uate training in union theological colleges. 
To this end the missionaries and native lead- 
ers have voted for the establishment of a few 
really high-grade union theological institu- 
tions, similar to the one recently opened in 
Bangalore, India. It is believed that in ad- 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 189 

vantages and facilities for training these 
should rank with, and if possible surpass, the 
theological seminaries and colleges of Chris- 
tian lands, thus obviating the necessity, ex- 
cept in very rare cases, of sending young men 
to Europe or America to complete their theo- 
logical studies. Without some such provi- 
sion as this in fields like India, Japan and 
China there is serious danger that the Church 
will not have leaders sufficiently well pre- 
pared to command the intellectual confidence 
and following of the educated classes. In 
these institutions men would be trained to 
take charge of the more important city 
parishes, to serve as teachers in theological 
schools, and to minister to the student class 
in different communities. As a rule, no one 
mission has a sufficient number of young men 
requiring such advanced training to warrant 
maintaining such a large and able staff of 
professors as would be needed in a theological 
institution of this rank and character. Such 
an enterprise should be a union effort. When 
deemed necessary, provision could be made 
by certain Christian bodies or groups of cog- 



190 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

nate denominations to provide for their own 
students separate facilities for worship and 
also for teaching their distinctive doctrines 
and polity. 

Happily there is almost universal agree- 
ment among missionary administrators at 
home, as well as among their representatives 
abroad, in favor of close co-operation in the 
establishment and maintenance of union lan- 
guage schools for missionaries on the field. 
Among the most successful already in opera- 
tion are those at Lucknow, Nanking and 
Cairo. Not less than fourteen of these union 
schools are called for in the findings of the 
conferences recently held in Asia by the 
Continuation Committee. A special com- 
mittee of the Continuation Committee is deal- 
ing in a comprehensive manner with the whole 
subject and, in conjunction with the mission- 
aries and the Mission Boards, is seeking 
to determine the number, location and scope 
of schools required in the different fields and 
to work out the best plan for their financial 
support. It is evident that to ensure their 
highest efficiency each school will require an 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 191 

able director, a highly qualified teaching staff 
and suitable accommodation for residences 
and for classes. In this connection the grow- 
ing importance of the recently constituted 
Boards of Missionary Preparation of Great 
Britain and of North America should be em- 
phasized. These boards are purely co-opera- 
tive enterprises, and as they gradually suc- 
ceed in bringing together the varied and rich 
experiences of all the Missionary Societies on 
this vital problem of the training of mission- 
ary candidates, the inevitable result will be a 
raising of the standard of requirements, and a 
marked increase in the efficiency of new mis- 
sionaries. In view of the increasingly exacting 
demands of the modern missionary career this 
united emphasis is both timely and prophetic. 
The problems and responsibilities of the 
Church in each non-Christian land suggest 
the need of some co-operative arrangement 
by which the influence of the Church in other 
lands may be brought to bear most helpfully. 
The Continuation Committee through its 
Special Committee on the Church in the Mis- 
sion Field may possibly best meet this rec- 



192 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

ognized need. It should place at the disposal 
of the missionaries and the native Christian 
leaders in each mission field the best experi- 
ence of other fields. It should conduct investi- 
gations on certain subjects, among them the 
following: "How can truly indigenous 
Churches be developed?" "What are the 
tendencies leading to closer co-operation or 
to separation between the Churches and Mis- 
sionary Societies of the West and the rising 
Churches on the mission field?" "The eco- 
nomic position and problems of Christianity 
in the various non-Christian lands." Such 
studies could be promoted through the 
activity of special commissions and also 
through carefully planned series of papers or 
magazine articles. Moreover, it will be well 
here and there, in such fields as China, to 
hold conferences to discuss these and other 
questions relating to the development of self- 
governing, self-supporting and self-propagat- 
ing Churches. Conferences on Faith and 
Order, such as have been suggested in the 
findings of some of the gatherings, will also 
be timely in certain fields. 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 193 

Everything practicable should be done to 
strengthen the bonds of union between the 
new Churches in non-Christian lands and 
the Church Historic, the Church Universal. 
This point is one of cardinal importance 
just now, when independent Churches are 
springing up on every hand, and when, owing 
to the growing national spirit, there is danger 
of the development of Churches in the East 
which will be separate in aims and sympathies 
as well as in activities from the Church in the 
West. In this connection the importance of 
the study of church history should be em- 
phasized, among both the missionaries and 
the native leaders, as well as among the stu- 
dents in theological colleges and Bible schools. 
This point should be brought to the attention 
of those who do most to shape the curricula 
of the training institutions on the field. More 
of the best works on church history should be 
translated into the various vernaculars of 
Asia. Original works in this field of scholar- 
ship should be prepared, having in mind the 
special requirements of the developing 
Churches in different countries. The fact 



194 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

that many of the native Christian leaders 
have such a poor historical sense makes it 
all the more important and necessary that 
in this and other ways we seek to keep the 
growing native Churches in closer touch with 
the great consensus of the continuous Church 
of all the ages. There could be no greater 
danger than for native Christianity to become 
separate from historical, credal, ecumenical, 
living Christianity. 

It may be well for the Continuation Com- 
mittee to associate with its Committee on the 
Church in the Mission Field an increasing 
number of able church historians and of those 
who have dealt most largely with the prob- 
lems involved in planting and developing the 
Christian Church. This Committee should 
also concern itself much with the problem 
of how best to ensure the spiritual vitality of 
the native Churches, and how to influence 
them to realize their missionary responsi- 
bility. The collection and dissemination of 
the most inspiring facts regarding the evan- 
gelistic outreach and spiritual achievements 
of the Church in different parts of the non- 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 195 

Christian world would prove to be most 
stimulating. A great service may also be 
rendered from time to time by sending great 
and inspiring Christian leaders as visitors 
to lands where the Church is in special need 
or is subject to peculiar strain. Such a step 
taken just now with reference to certain parts 
of the Orient where an ultraliberal spirit has 
recently asserted itself with great power, 
would be most timely and wise. 

The findings in every conference held in 
Asia reveal the need of a far better co-ordina- 
tion and a closer co-operation in the educa- 
tional work. Back of this lies the need of a 
well considered and well understood policy 
for Christian education. In not one of the 
twenty-one conferences was a satisfactory 
answer given to the following question: 
"Have you in this area a well thought-,out 
and generally accepted policy of Christian 
education? " We should not be satisfied until 
such a policy is formulated and adopted. The 
help of the Continuation Committee has 
been requested in order to increase the effi- 
ciency of educational missionary work in all 



196 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

its phases and grades. To this end it should, 
in co-operation with the Boards of Missionary- 
Preparation, take steps to ensure the better 
training of missionaries who are to engage in 
educational work. In every field there is a 
noticeable lack of men trained for this partic- 
ular work, that is, men who are strictly educa- 
tionalists and yet thoroughly missionary. 

It would be a good plan if the Committee 
on Christian Education related to the Con- 
tinuation Committee would undertake to 
issue occasional, if not regular, bulletins, 
especially with educational missionaries in 
mind. Such a paper would do much to keep 
them abreast of the thought on educational 
problems throughout the world, and would 
help to raise the standard of efficiency. This 
committee should serve in every way in its 
power the missionary educational associa- 
tions on the different fields. This can be 
done by enabling them to employ expert 
educational directors or superintendents who 
would serve the interests of all Missions with- 
in certain areas. In any effort to increase the 
efficiency of the educational work, chief em- 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 197 

phasis should be given to making it more pro- 
ductive in a truly missionary sense. To ac- 
complish this great result a large increase in 
the staff of educational missionaries is de- 
manded. 

On every field there is imperative need of 
bringing about larger and more practical co- 
operation between the different Missions as 
to specific educational institutions already 
established or called for. In several fields 
the members of the Continuation Commit- 
tee Conferences came to unanimous agree- 
ment as to the number, and in some cases 
as to the location, of the Christian colleges 
and universities required to serve the inter- 
ests of the Christian Church. The policy 
embraced not only colleges for men but 
also those for women. It included medical 
colleges, normal schools, theological institu- 
tions and, in certain cases, secondary schools. 
The leaders on all these fields very much de- 
sire that on the home field representatives of 
the Missionary Societies which are chiefly 
concerned in the different areas be brought 
together in conference, that they may face 



198 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

the facts and decide what should be done to 
effect the co-operation so much desired. It 
is evident that the missionaries are prepared 
to go much further than most of the Boards. 
The co-operation of a committee, consti- 
tuted as is this Committee on Christian 
Education in connection with the Continua- 
tion Committee, is greatly needed to help 
to decide on the best plans of administration 
of union schools and colleges, and also on the 
best methods of financing them. Owing to 
the growth of government educational sys- 
tems in all parts of Asia, great not only 
in size, but also in efficiency and influence, 
Christian missions must greatly expand their 
educational work and raise its standards. 
This may involve great expenditure, for ex- 
pansion and efficiency are costly, but it will 
result in savings which in the course of the 
next decade will aggregate millions. It is 
the deep-seated conviction of all who have 
thought much on educational missionary 
problems that we are summoned irresistibly 
to a united policy and to corporate action, 
and that the more quickly and strongly the 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 199 

question in its varied and practical aspects 
is grappled with unitedly by the representa- 
tives of the missionary forces, the better it 
will be for the interests of the Christian 
Church. 

Those who have given most careful study 
to the question agree that much of the medi- 
cal missionary work should be conducted 
on the basis of co-operation. Thus the con- 
vention of the China Medical Missionary 
Association, held at Peking in January, 1913, 
adopted a policy calling for union in all medi- 
cal college work in that country and agreed 
upon the number, location and staff require- 
ments of such colleges. A similar policy has 
been approved in other Asiatic fields. There 
is also agreement in nearly every country as 
to the wisdom of co-operation in the planting 
and conduct of more of the mission hospitals. 
The production of text-books and other 
technical literature required by medical 
workers is obviously another matter which 
can best be cared for by the different Mis- 
sions in concert. 

Even cursory investigation has revealed 

14 



200 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

the fact that possibly no phase of missionary 
work is so poorly in hand as that dealing with 
Christian literature. Certainly no other de- 
partment is suffering more from lack of sys- 
tem and co-operation. The secret of the 
wonderful results in the translation, revision, 
circulation and study of the vernacular Bible 
is found largely in the fact that the home 
Societies and Churches have believed pro- 
foundly in such work and have co-operated 
earnestly in furnishing for it both men and 
money. Similar interest and co-operation 
are imperatively demanded with reference 
to the general Christian literature required 
on every mission field. Many leaders ac- 
knowledge this in theory, but fail to adopt 
and follow a policy in accord with their theory 
or ideal. Special attention should be given 
to working out the problem of the federation 
or unification of more of the literature socie- 
ties and activities in India and China, just 
as has been accomplished recently in Japan, 
where one comprehensive society now serves 
all the Missions and Churches. A policy 
should be elaborated and adopted by the 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 201 

regular Missionary Societies which will make 
possible the employment of able editorial sec- 
retaries. These secretaries are needed not 
so much for authorship as for directorship; 
that is, to study the needs of the respective 
language areas and to discover and enlist 
capable writers. 

Owing to the progress of education in all 
parts of Asia the literacy of the people is con- 
stantly rising. The chief religious systems 
are manifesting growing literary activity. 
Antichristian literature continues to spread 
from the West to the East. The native 
Church is growing in numbers as well as in 
intelligence. Owing to these and other con- 
siderations there is urgent need of much more 
extensive and serious literary activity both 
on the part of and on behalf of the Christian 
Church. There is an imperative demand for 
new apologists and new apologetic literature 
to minister to educated non-Christians. The 
leaders and members of the Churches also re- 
quire a far larger body of literature by which 
to enrich and strengthen faith and character 
and to help to qualify for Christian service. 



202 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

An examination of the Christian books avail- 
able in the vernacular for the Chinese, Ko- 
rean, or Japanese pastor or other Christian 
worker, in contrast with the Christian litera- 
ture accessible to the average clergyman in 
England, America, Germany or Holland, 
would occasion not only surprise but real 
solicitude, and yet we are looking to these 
men to build national Churches, to feed the 
flock, and to wage a triumphant propaganda. 
From the nature of the case more than nine- 
teen-twentieths of the Christian literature 
required in Asia can best be produced in 
co-operation. Moreover, co-operative action 
is required to ensure its wisest and most eco- 
nomical distribution. 

There is special need just now of co-opera- 
tion with reference to the subject of mission- 
ary co-operation itself; that is, there is great 
need that workers and leaders in the mis- 
sionary movement, both at home and abroad, 
make a united or co-operative study of prob- 
lems and experiences in connection with co- 
operation. A study of the volume of findings 
of the Asia Conferences of 1912-13 reveals 



POSSIBILITIES OF CO-OPERATION 203 

literally hundreds of practical plans or pro- 
posals for the drawing together of the forces 
for common effort. The findings on co- 
operation, particularly of the three National 
Conferences, constitute a practical, sane and 
really masterly approach to the problem. 
This co-operative movement can no more be 
resisted than can the tides of the sea. Dis- 
cerning leaders do not wish to resist or to 
stay it, but they do see the wisdom of guiding 
it. They desire to make it a helpful and not 
a dangerous or a weakening process. They 
recognize that there are perils to be avoided. 
It is desirable that the representatives of the 
Societies hold from time to time conferences 
on co-operation similar to the one held in 
January, 1914, in New York, to review the 
progress being made in different fields in co- 
operative missionary enterprises, that they 
may learn and make available the lessons 
as to limitations and difficulties involved 
in this process, and how best to avoid or 
counteract possible dangers and unsatisfac- 
tory experiences. 



WHERE TO PLACE THE CHIEF 

EMPHASIS IN THE MISSIONARY 

ENTERPRISE 



VIII 

WHERE TO PLACE THE CHIEF 

EMPHASIS IN THE MISSIONARY 

ENTERPRISE 

On my return from my first journey around 
the world I placed chief emphasis upon the 
need of a large increase in the number of 
foreign missionaries. At the end of my 
second journey throughout the principal mis- 
sion fields of the world I tried to call special 
attention to the necessity of augmenting 
greatly the native arm of the service. In the 
light of my more recent journeys, which have 
taken me not only to Asiatic but also to 
African and Latin American fields, I am con- 
strained to shift the emphasis entirely from 
numbers to quality, and especially to the 
spiritual aspect of the life and activity of the 
workers. While thousands of well-qualified 
new missionaries and tens of thousands of 
the best furnished native leaders and workers 

207 



208 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

are required to enable the Christian forces to 
meet the present world situation, beyond a 
shadow of doubt the principal requisite is 
that of a far greater manifestation of spiritual 
vitality and power in all departments of the 
missionary movement. This point applies 
with just as much force to those who further 
the work of the Church at home as to those 
responsible for its extension abroad. The 
world-wide expansion of pure Christianity 
is essentially a spiritual and a superhuman 
movement. Therefore, the chief emphasis 
throughout the entire enterprise should be 
placed on the spiritual. 

In the aims of the missionary enterprise 
the spiritual should hold the central place. 
The aim of Christian missions is not the ex- 
pansion of commerce, not the extension of 
the spheres of political influence of Western 
Christian nations, not the spread of Western 
learning and culture, not the disintegration 
of the beliefs, worships and practices of non- 
Christian religions, not even the reproduc- 
tion in non-Christian lands of the organized 
forms of Western Christianity. The central 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 209 

and governing aim is the presentation of the 
living Christ to all men, and doing so in such 
a way among each people or in each nation as 
will result in domesticating, naturalizing or 
making truly indigenous pure Christianity 
among them. The primary charge of the 
Founder of the Christian religion — a charge 
which has never been repealed and has not 
yet been fulfilled, constitutes this the initial 
or major aim. It is this most vital purpose — 
the bringing of the knowledge of the living 
Christ to living men — that makes possible the 
working out of His life in the life of a nation. 
This central aim of the missionary enter- 
prise should not be confounded with the 
various missionary methods, such as the 
planting of Christian schools and colleges, 
the establishing of hospitals and dispensaries, 
the production and distribution of Christian 
literature, the introduction of the countless 
forms of social service and of other special 
applications of Christianity. These and 
other methods and means simply multiply 
the opportunities for releasing divine life 
and energy. 



210 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Moreover, the aim should not be confused 
with the results of missions. One result of 
medical missions in China has been the im- 
provement of the physical well-being of the 
Chinese race, but this was not the dominating 
aim of the early medical missionaries. One 
result of the founding of Robert College was 
to facilitate the emancipation of Bulgaria, 
but this was not the design of the founders 
of that beneficent institution. No enterprise 
or movement among men has yielded larger 
social and moral results than the missionary 
movement, but these results have largely 
been by-products of the enterprise and a 
necessary consequence of holding in promi- 
nence the central spiritual aim. The work 
of Christian missions is to impart divine 
vitality to decaying civilizations or to those 
characterized by low vitality. In doing so 
forces are liberated whose influence and out- 
reach no one can foretell or estimate. 

The spiritual aim may well be called the 
governing aim; for it should determine the 
missionary program or policy to be followed, 
the methods and means to be employed, the 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 211 

extent and distribution of the financial re- 
sources, the qualifications and expenditure of 
the time of the workers and the spiritual 
forces to be enlisted. The largest, most 
beneficent and most enduring results have 
followed where this goal has been kept clearly 
in view and steadfastly pursued. Many un- 
fortunate pages of experience in the name of 
missions would never have been written had 
this spiritual aim always been given the 
absolute right of way in missionary policy 
and practice. It is well, therefore, in all our 
thinking and acting that we be dominated 
by the conviction that only the living Christ 
can bring life to a dying world. 

The spiritual should be uppermost in mis- 
sionary methods. Every method is proper 
which is consistent with this dominant, vital 
aim, and which helps to realize it. There 
are, of course, some methods which help more 
than others to attain the central spiritual end. 
It is wise to relate all methods to this aim 
and test them by it. Medical missions, edu- 
cational missions, industrial missions, the use 
of literature, social betterment projects, 



212 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Christian homes and countless applications 
of Christian principles have demonstrated 
their right to be. They should be multiplied 
on a vast scale throughout the non-Christian 
world and should be developed to the highest 
possible degree of efficiency. They are abun- 
dantly worth while for their own sake. They 
are indeed evidences of Christianity. They 
exhibit the life of Christ and the helpfulness 
of Christ. "The works that I do in my 
Father's name, these bear witness of me." 
All such helpful expressions of the spirit of 
Christ should be encouraged. These meth- 
ods, however, must not be regarded as ends 
in themselves but as means tributary to the 
realization of the great objective — the bring- 
ing of men under the actual sway of Jesus 
Christ. 

How easy it is to lose sight of the end in the 
methods or the means. A wise missionary in 
the Far East when asked some twenty years 
ago to give his opinion about the work of 
another prominent missionary in that part of 
the world, replied, "He is so absorbed with 
means that I am afraid that he will get tired 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 213 

out before he gets to the end for which all of 
his means exist." That worker seems to be 
no nearer arriving at the true end now than he 
was at the time this criticism was made. Dr. 
Young of Arabia, after dealing with 40,000 
surgical cases, said, "The curse of Islam is 
not to be stopped by surgery any more than 
immorality is to be cured by free breakfasts." 
Then he went on to point out that it can be 
overcome only by meeting its weak points 
and making men dissatisfied with its illogical 
or unreasonable basis. 

It is possible for men to go out as mission- 
aries with the purpose to make Christ known 
and yet to become so busy in the work of 
teaching or other worthy activities that they 
never proclaim Christ to those over whom 
they have won influence. The principal of a 
Christian college in Asia remarked in a re- 
cent conference, that he did not expect to 
have conversions in his college in this genera- 
tion but simply to do the work preparatory 
for making conversions possible in the next 
generation. He then added that his home 
committee agreed with him that conversions 



214 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

should not be expected in the present genera- 
tion. It need not be pointed out that this 
attitude and practice is not likely to result 
in the desired conversions in the next genera- 
tion. Education alone, for example, will not 
evangelize the world. The many regular 
and established methods of missionary work, 
educational, medical, literary, philanthropic, 
are right and should be employed as convin- 
cing expressions of the unselfish and con- 
structive spirit of Christ, but it is not the 
expression or illustration of the spirit of 
Christ which converts and transforms men, 
but the living Christ Himself. He is the 
Life as well as the Way and the Truth. 
All other methods are to be regarded as 
schoolmasters pointing the way to Him. If 
the worker keeps this before him as the aim 
and goal and vital aspect of every missionary 
effort, then the use of any good means will 
abound in marvelous opportunities to present 
Christ. The deeper one penetrates into 
the problem of the non-Christian world the 
more one recognizes that the chief hindrance 
is not ignorance, disease or unfavorable en- 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 215 

vironment, but deadened consciences and 
unredeemed wills. The proof of this is that 
pure Christianity meets some of its greatest 
obstacles in parts of the non-Christian world 
where ignorance and disease and other un- 
favorable external conditions have been 
most completely banished. 

Some missionary methods are more highly 
productive than others. These may be char- 
acterized as the most vital processes, and in 
all cases where other methods are employed 
these vital processes should be employed 
with them or be related to them. The most 
important and productive method of all is 
that of relating men one by one through 
reasonable and vital faith to Jesus Christ. 
By reasonable faith is meant a faith for 
which men can give reasons which will stand. 
By vital faith is meant a faith which actually 
transforms life. This individual work for 
individuals was the method most constantly 
employed by Christ Himself and has ever 
been given a large place in the activities of 
the most helpful spiritual workers. It is the 
crowning work, the most highly multiplying 

15 



216 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

work, the most enduring work. The most 
influential converts in India have been the 
product of personal siege work. The largest 
and most satisfactory results in conversions 
both in colleges and in hospitals have come 
from the use of the same method. In fields 
like Korea and Manchuria, where Chris- 
tianity has recently spread most widely and 
effectively, the secret has been that the 
leading of others one by one to Christ has 
been inculcated as one of the primary duties 
of the Christian convert. Gibbon assigns as 
one of the principal causes explaining the 
rapid spread of Christianity in the Roman 
Empire the fact that each convert regarded 
it as his greatest privilege and responsibility 
to disseminate among his acquaintances the 
inestimable blessings which he had received. 
Harnack, in his "Expansion of Christianity/' 
has strongly enforced this point. 

Another one of the most vital methods, 
judged by results, is that of preaching. 
Wherever there have been preachers who 
were truly wise guides and interpreters and 
genuine prophets, the spiritual results have 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 217 

transcended all human calculations. One of 
the most serious defects of the missionary 
enterprise and of the native Churches in 
nearly every field of the non-Christian world 
is the dearth of able gospel preachers. 
The time of most missionaries is so fully 
taken by administrative and other work 
that the conditions are unfavorable for 
the development and exercise of the pro- 
phetic function. This goes far to explain 
why there are comparatively so few great 
preachers among the natives; they need in- 
spirational models or examples. Quite as 
great as the need for many preachers of power 
for the masses is that for a larger number of 
very able apologetic lecturers or preachers 
for the educated classes. 

The building up of vital indigenous 
Churches constitutes another method of car- 
dinal importance. The Christian Church is 
the society entrusted with the Gospel for all 
mankind. Through its life and work the 
nations are to be redeemed. It is gratifying, 
therefore, to observe multiplying evidences 
that the Church in different parts of the non- 



218 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

Christian world is becoming truly indigenous 
and spiritual. Whatever is done to facilitate 
this desired end will greatly hasten the Chris- 
tian conquest of the world. 

The promotion of the reading and thorough 
study of the original writings of Christianity 
is likewise a method of living power. In all 
fields Bible study has shown power to awaken 
conscience. It gives the impression in some 
cases of having created conscience. One of 
the leading ministers in Japan in describing 
his conversion, said, "Behind the Sermon on 
the Mount I found the living God. My con- 
science was enlivened and henceforth I could 
do nothing wrong." A Mohammedan in 
Arabia, in speaking of the Gospels, said that 
he liked the historical parts but that the 
words of Jesus made him tremble. The Bible 
multiplies sins; that is, under the blaze of its 
light things come to be regarded as sinful 
which otherwise are condoned or regarded as 
right. The diffusion of the Bible and the study 
of its principles is a precursor of spiritual 
awakenings. It goes far to explain the Puri- 
tan paradox that with increasing holiness 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 219 

grows the sense of sin. The study of the 
Christian Scriptures vitalizes. Emerson in 
speaking of the words of de Montaigne, says, 
"Cut these words, and they would bleed; 
they are vascular and alive.' ' With much 
greater aptness and force might these words 
be applied to the Christian writings. In those 
communities where Christ's teachings and life 
are most studied and applied one is remind- 
ed of nature in springtime. " Everything 
shall live whithersoever this river cometh." 

The releasing of the truth of the Bible 
results in wonderful transformations of 
individuals and communities. Men are 
changed not simply in name or opinion but 
also in character and spirit. Communities are 
completely transformed. One need only con- 
trast communities in which Christ's teachings 
are known and obeyed with those which are 
ignorant of them. This is well expressed by 
Professor Francis G. Peabody of Harvard, in 
writing of a recent journey in the Near East: 
"I was riding one day across the Lebanon 
range between Damascus and the sea, and 
passed through many Turkish villages, 



220 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

squalid and unclean, with women veiled and 
children slinking from the stranger, and fields 
but thinly sown. Of a sudden I came upon 
another scene. It was a village where thrift 
and order prevailed, where there were flowers 
in the windows and unveiled women at the 
doors, and children calling a welcome as I 
passed. What did this transformation mean? 
It was a Christian village. Fifty years before 
there had been set up by the sea, at Beirtlt, 
the mission station of American Presby- 
terians. It was about fifty miles away and 
year by year, one mile a year, the influence of 
that teaching had radiated like sunshine over 
a darkened land; and a new way of life, a 
converted conduct, an assimilated civiliza- 
tion had become unconsciously naturalized 
and appropriated. The mission of Christi- 
anity had been fulfilled in a better way than 
some of its supporters had desired or 
dreamed. It was not the victory of a creed, 
but the witness of a spirit. It was not Pres- 
byterianism that met me, but Christ. The 
word had been with power: 'The Life had 
become the light of men.'" 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 221 

The study of the Bible releases vital energy. 
De Quincey has divided all literature into the 
literature of knowledge and the literature 
of power. These writings are preeminently 
the literature of power. As a Jewess in 
speaking of the teachings of Jesus, remarked, 
"They make me wish to obey them." From 
what other writings have there poured forth 
such streams of moral energy? The maxi- 
mum of responsiveness to duty is found in 
those places where Christ's principles are 
best expounded and understood. It is not 
strange that in such communities we find 
men devoting themselves most truly to un- 
selfish service. The beneficent, reformatory, 
philanthropic and social betterment activi- 
ties are found in the lands which have come 
most under the influence of the Bible. In 
most cases where this spirit of unselfish- 
ness is breaking out within the sphere of 
other religions it may be traced indirectly 
if not directly to the life and principles of 
Christ. 

Other methods should be regarded as 
tributary to these most vital processes or as 



222 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

furnishing points of contact or opening doors 
of opportunity for them. The New Testa- 
ment has misled us and Christ did not mean 
what He said if incomparably the most im- 
portant work in Christian missions be not 
that of introducing men to Him as a divine 
person and bringing them under His sway. 

As one travels over the world he finds here 
and there, in foreign lands as well as at home, 
individual missionaries or workers who are 
apparently by their lives influencing the 
spread of Christianity far more profoundly 
and extensively than others. Judged by re- 
sults, certain individuals of this kind are 
achieving more than scores or hundreds of 
other workers possessing like general quali- 
fications and having like opportunities. While 
some of these lives which are most productive 
spiritually are men of prominence, others are 
of humble station and are comparatively un- 
known. One need only reflect upon the career 
and influence of such Christlike workers as 
Hudson Taylor, Pastor Ding Li-mei, and the 
teacher, Chang Po-ling, in China; the Hon. 
Yun Chi-ho of Korea; Mr. Ishii, recently de- 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 223 

ceased, who was the George Muller of Japan, 
and the late Archbishop Nicolai of the Russian 
Mission in that country; Kali Charan Banurji 
of Calcutta, Mr. Chacko, the student worker 
in Madras, and Bishop Azariah of India; 
Donald Fraser of Livingstonia; and Baroness 
Wreda, the worker among the prisons of Fin- 
land. As the influence going forth from such 
lives is studied, the conviction deepens that 
what is needed is not so much to quadruple 
our numbers as to quadruple ourselves, the 
better to allow God to do through us what He 
has been doing through these and what He 
did through the workers in the apostolic age. 
One student of the early days of Christi- 
anity has noted that the predominant traits 
of the early Christians, explaining the depth 
and outreach of their spiritual influences, 
were purity, honesty, unworldliness and love 
of one another. As we study the lives of 
these more recent Christian workers, what 
seems to characterize them? Apparently 
they have all preserved the sense of divine 
mission. They have maintained as a reality 
fellowship with God. They have kept their 



224 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

sensitiveness, never becoming hardened or 
callous to the tragic facts of the sins and 
spiritual needs of those about them. They 
have never lost the power of sympathy or 
compassion. They have not stagnated intel- 
lectually or spiritually, but have preserved 
their capacity for growth. Recognizing that 
one of the principal qualifications of the mis- 
sionary is that he must have life to give, they 
have maintained at all costs right habits of 
nurture or feeding their own spiritual lives. 
These workers constantly remind one of the 
living Christ. Thus the true missionary is a 
missionary because he cannot help it. He 
has the life of Christ pulsating within him. 
He is like Christ not because he laboriously 
imitates Him but because he is so truly and 
constantly related to Christ that Christ's 
Spirit manifests Himself in and through 
him. The scriptural sense of glory, accord- 
ing to George Adam Smith, is, "God become 
visible." Thus these workers show forth the 
living God. Their lives remind men that 
Christ not only was, but is. "If all English- 
men were like Donald McLeod," said a 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 225 

Hindu, " India would soon become a Chris- 
tian country." 

Only as the workers place the chief empha- 
sis on the spiritual in their lives and in their 
work, in their plans and in all relationships, 
are they able to meet successfully the many 
spiritual dangers which beset them. The 
more important the career, the more numer- 
ous, subtle, and powerful the spiritual perils. 
All the home supports are removed from the 
life of the missionary. He lives in compara- 
tive isolation and loneliness. He is sur- 
rounded with a most depressing environ- 
ment. He is subjected to positive and fierce 
temptations. He has to maintain a high level 
of spiritual life without the support of visible 
Christian fellowship and without the con- 
tinual renewing and stimulus which comes 
from the many helps with which we are 
familiar at home. Great drafts are made 
upon his whole being by those who are look- 
ing to him for sympathy, guidance and 
leadership. Removed far from the eye of all 
supervising boards and supporting constitu- 
encies he is subjected to special dangers of 



226 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

spiritual slothfulness or slackness. There is 
much in his position to encourage dictatorial- 
ness and self-sufficiency. In the midst of 
such conditions nothing but a consistent 
and constant emphasis upon the spiritual 
side of life can save him from being over- 
come and hold him true to his high and holy 
purpose. 

It is equally important that chief emphasis 
be placed upon the spiritual in the life of the 
home Church in its relation to the expansion 
of the Christian religion. One of the most 
crucial factors in the evangelization of the 
world is the state of the Church in Christian 
lands. This point was strongly emphasized 
in the opinions of the leaders of the Chris- 
tian forces in all lands as expressed in the in- 
vestigation carried on by Commission I of the 
World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh. 
There is without doubt a direct and vital con- 
nection between the performance of our work 
at the ends of the earth and the quality and 
fulness of our spiritual life on the home field. 
The missionary enterprise shares in much 
larger measure than is usually recognized the 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 227 

ideals and spirit of the home Church and car- 
ries these influences into the life of the Church 
it creates in the non-Christian world. Cer- 
tainly in the initial stage of the missionary 
enterprise — a most critical stage — the Church 
at home which produces, chooses, trains, and 
sends out the missionary, determines the 
faith, ideals and practices which are being 
propagated. 

The object lesson of the home Church also 
profoundly influences native Christian work- 
ers who come to us year by year in increasing 
numbers for purposes of study and investiga- 
tion. They, as well as unbelievers, when 
they see the unchristian aspects of our civili- 
zation — our shocking denials of Christ — must 
be affected by it all. 

At times we may seriously question whether 
we have a Christianity worth propagating 
over the world. If there be grounds for such 
skepticism, however, history shows that the 
last thing to do under such conditions is to 
abandon or contract the missionary propa- 
ganda. We should rather augment our mis- 
sionary efforts, for therein lies the secret of 



228 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

maintaining and increasing our vital energy. 
Moreover, the world of Christianity is meas- 
ured by what it has of Christ. In what land 
and in what generation has Christ been better 
known than in America to-day? If He be 
necessary to us, He is necessary to all men, 
and it is our solemn duty to make Him known 
to all men. The missionary movement exists 
to make Him known, to fix the attention of 
all men upon Him, to expose them to His 
influence. We say to the non-Christians, 
"The things in our civilization which you de- 
spise and of which we are ashamed are not 
due to Jesus Christ but to our lack of Him." 
To meet the present colossal world situa- 
tion great spiritual forces must be released. 
In the present generation of Christians in 
the West are vast capacities for sacrifice. 
"Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth 
and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it 
die, it beareth much fruit." The secret of 
large fruitage so much desired and needed 
on every field lies in releasing this latent 
force of sacrifice. The spirit of Christian mis- 
sions is the spirit of Christ; and His spirit 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 229 

was and is essentially a spirit of supreme 
self-sacrifice. With Him it reached further 
than from Gethsemane to Calvary. He 
lived a life of constant self-denial. His law 
of sacrifice His disciples gradually made their 
own. The Roman world was conquered by 
it. When will the Christians of Western 
lands make it their own? Great is the need 
of recovering the New Testament conception 
of discipleship. Both at the home base and 
on the mission field there is imperative need 
of a far more serious and resolute following 
of Christ. Christians have been prone to 
make the Gospel too cheap. There has not 
been enough patient endurance of hardness. 
We forget that Christ has summoned men to 
count the cost. Only the Cross brings heroes 
and martyrs. How may this spirit of sacri- 
fice, which is the spirit of true triumph, be 
developed? Not so much by calling attention 
to the needs and possibilities of the non- 
Christian world, nor by dwelling on the mag- 
nitude and wonder of the present opportu- 
nity, but by pondering the price that must 
be paid to meet these needs, to improve these 



230 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

opportunities and to realize these possibili- 
ties. All followers of Christ should think 
deeply on what it cost Him to bring into the 
world the knowledge of God and the forgive- 
ness of sin and the life everlasting. 

Another mighty spiritual force which must 
be far more largely released is that of faith. 
The whole missionary enterprise needs to be 
lifted up into a sphere of large dimensions, 
the sphere of faith in the living and the 
almighty God. Christians at home and 
abroad have been regulating their plans and 
activities too much by precedents and by 
visible resources and not enough by the ob- 
vious designs of God and by His invisible 
and boundless resources. We need to recover 
more largely Christ's conception of the char- 
acter and ability of God. Then will we be 
characterized more by the faith which domi- 
nated the Christians of the apostolic age. 
One of the most hopeful aspects of the present 
world situation is its overwhelming magni- 
tude and difficulty, for the history of the 
Church clearly shows that such conditions 
greatly facilitate a deepening acquaintance 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 231 

with God and the discovery of His ways and 
the releasing of His power. 

It becomes increasingly evident that the 
present world situation can be met only 
through a great manifestation of superhuman 
wisdom, superhuman love and superhuman 
power. Intercession is the means which re- 
leases these omnipotent forces and brings 
them to bear upon the missionary movement. 
The Church has not yet discovered, still less 
begun to realize, the limitless possibilities of 
intercession. The most alarming fact is that 
there are so few Christians who are devoting 
themselves with conviction and faithfulness 
to prayer on behalf of the extension of 
Christ's Kingdom. Well, therefore, may the 
question be raised, Why are there not more 
intercessors, and why are we ourselves not 
more faithful in intercession? In the case of 
many Christians this is due to a lack of 
meditation upon God and His ways of work- 
ing. It is impossible for anyone who honestly 
desires to be Christlike, to think thoroughly 
and conclusively upon prayer in its relation 
to the resources of God, and also upon the 

16 



232 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

deepest and most pressing needs of men, and 
not have the purpose take shape within him 
to imitate Christ in intercession as in other 
things. 

The reason some do not give themselves to 
intercessory prayer is that they have fallen 
under the spell of insidious unbelief. This is 
due, on the one hand, to the scientific temper 
which emphasizes exclusively a certain order 
of nature, and, on the other, to the idea that 
the infinite goodness, omniscience and omni- 
potence of God make intercessory prayer 
needless. We do well to remind ourselves 
that if the Bible teaching and record about 
prayer be true, then no matter with how 
much mystery its practice and achievements 
may be surrounded, it is a central reality in 
human experience. At times in my own life 
I have had grave doubts as to the objective 
power of prayer. To help remove these I 
have readpossibly forty treatises on the sub- 
ject; but, while many of these were helpful, 
they did not of themselves ^dissolve my 
doubts. Among other aids to faith, I might 
mention two which have helped to carry me 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 233 

through my difficulties into a sense of cer- 
tainty as to the achieving power of prayer for 
others. The first is the practice of interces- 
ision. The more one reflects upon it the more 
strongly will one come to believe that this 
form of prayer can be verified only by em- 
ploying it. The other thing which has in- 
variably helped me in moments of doubt or 
perplexity is the simple reflection — Jesus 
Christ prayed for others. Then I have said 
to myself, If He found this practice necessary 
or even desirable, what presumption to as- 
sume that I can do without it! Let us face 
the fact that not to intercede for others 
implies a fundamental lack of faith in God as 
revealed in Christ, whereas to forget our- 
selves in intense prayer for others is an ab- 
solute proof that we believe in God as a 
living God who is actually presiding over the 
affairs of men. 

It is painful but necessary to add that some 
Christians do not devote themselves to 
prayer for others because they are living on 
a plane which violates the conditions of effect- 
ive intercession. It passes comprehension 



234 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

how some men can expect to believe in inter- 
cession as the mightiest force wielded on 
earth, in view of what they tolerate within 
the chambers of their imagery, in their mo- 
tive life, in their attitude and spirit toward 
others — not to mention outbreaking sins and 
practices. 

Without doubt, many are kept from the 
immeasurable possibilities of the life of inter- 
cession because of the difficulties which beset 
the path. It is not easy to forget ourselves 
and become absorbed in unselfish thought 
and prayer for others. It requires energy to 
exercise the imagination to such an extent 
that we are able to put ourselves- so sympa- 
thetically in the place of the man for whom 
we pray that we literally give ourselves to 
prayer on his behalf. It requires an exercise 
of the imagination to realize, so vividly that 
our very soul is moved, the mind of Christ 
concerning any man or cause for which we 
pray. David said, "I give myself unto 
prayer" — not simply his words or thoughts, 
but himself. Professor George Adam Smith 
once preached at Yale University a remark- 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 235 

able sermon on Christ's intercession in the 
Garden. It will be found rewarding to read 
that sermon, noticing the point he makes 
about the nervous energy which Christ ex- 
pended in His intercession. While this kind 
of prayer, like everything else of most value, 
costs vitality, it is equally and happily true 
that under the gracious influence of the Holy 
Spirit, Who helps our infirmity, it may be free 
from all anxious striving and strain. Yes, 
more than this, "They that wait upon the 
Lord shall renew their strength."! All the 
more, therefore, should we avoid drifting into 
slothfulness in habits of prayer. There is no 
way to make intercession easy. It will ever 
remain true that while the spirit may be will- 
ing the flesh is weak. We do well, therefore, 
to give no cause for the well-merited com- 
plaint of the prophet in the ancient time, 
"There is none . . . that stirreth up him- 
self to take hold of Thee." 

Christ's concern for man, associated with 
His life of unbroken prayer to God on behalf 
of others, suggests a root reason why many 
otherwise loyal Christians are not more faith- 

17 



236 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

ful in intercession; it is because they do not 
sufficiently care for men, and their hearts are 
not sufficiently responsive to the solicitude of 
God on behalf of men. Think of those who 
are being captivated by the luxurious life of 
our day without realizing its consequences, 
of others who are already slaves of body and 
soul-destroying habits, of still others who are 
suffering from serious doubt or subtle pride 
or selfish and overmastering ambition. How 
shall a Christlike sympathy in prayer for in- 
dividuals like these take the place of our 
selfish indifference or undue absorption in 
other things? Our own recollection and ex- 
perience of temptation or failure must be 
used to impress upon us the needs of tempted 
and discouraged men. Every victory or 
achievement accomplished with a true sense 
of Christ's sufficiency and our own insuffi- 
ciency must impel us to exercise faith for 
others also. To have the most helpful rela- 
tions with our fellow men, and the closest fel- 
lowship with our Lord, who prayed for 
tempted Peter, we must share at any cost 
His present work of intercession. 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 237 

The fact should not be overlooked that in- 
tercession does not have a larger place in the 
lives of Christians because of their failure to 
master the conditions in which they find 
themselves. It is desirable to have a stated 
and unhurried time for intercession. Our 
most profitable employment should not be 
crowded into a corner. The words of the 
Apostle, "That ye may give yourselves unto 
prayer," are rendered by Dean Alford, "That 
ye may have undisturbed leisure for prayer." 
This emphasis is especially needed in these 
days because of the impetuosity and restless- 
ness of our times. One of the chief reasons, 
apparently, why Christ went apart for pro- 
longed prayer is the very reason why many 
busy Christians excuse themselves — the fact 
that He had so much to do and that the issues 
at stake were so great. How much better for 
those of us who can control the time of going 
to our accustomed place of labor, to go per- 
chance one half -hour later, or for those of us 
who cannot, to retire at night a half-hour 
later, or, better, to rise a half-hour earlier, 
that we may help others by prayer — the most 



238 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

effective way known among men — rather 
than be slaves to our present schedule and 
rob men of that which can be given to them 
only through our intercession. Let us not 
labor under the delusion that there will come 
a leisure time for unhurried retreat with God 
on behalf of men; for if ever that time comes, 
many of the occasions which demand our in- 
tercession will have passed. Moreover, days 
of special retreat invariably mean most to 
those who have faithfully observed from day 
to day the requirements of true intercession. 
Let us learn to utilize many unrecognized 
opportunities for intercession. What are 
some of these lost opportunities which might 
be transmuted into the most profitable expe- 
riences of life? On street cars, even when 
standing in the press of strangers and holding 
to the swaying strap; waiting at stations for 
trains, or in reception-rooms or outer offices 
for appointments or interviews; before the 
beginning of a religious service; or perchance 
during addresses, sermons or debates; some- 
times when our souls are especially moved, 
or quite as much when there seems to be 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 239 

nothing to stir us to this highest calling — these 
are times and places for "buying up the op- 
portunity." 

In the conferences with Christian leaders 
in India conducted in the name of the Con- 
tinuation Committee of the Edinburgh World 
Missionary Conference, it was a special satis- 
faction to have with us at three of the gather- 
ings one of the most prominent Christian 
leaders in the life and thought of Great Brit- 
ain. Noticing that he had his hands before 
his eyes much of the time, I thought at first 
that it must be because he was seated where 
the light was troubling him. Then I thought 
that he was occupied in meditation. But 
later I discovered that he was giving himself 
almost constantly to intercession on behalf 
of those participating in the discussions and 
on behalf of the momentous interests which 
they were seeking to serve. Nor shall I for- 
get how he came to some of the evangelistic 
meetings with Mohammedan, Hindu and 
Buddhist students, and from the beginning 
to the close, sat bowed in prayer while I 
sought to proclaim the vital message. It is 



240 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

my belief that to such prayer on the part of 
this friend and others like him are traceable 
the otherwise inexplicable results of these 
conferences and evangelistic meetings. 

To nearly every person there come periods 
when he is set aside for a season from the 
activities of his regular vocation. It is a 
tragic fact that this experience has marked 
the undoing of some Christians; but what an 
inspiring fact, on the other hand, that it has 
been an open door to many another, ushering 
him into the most productive period of his 
life. 

Each person must evolve the plan of using 
lists of objects for intercession which experi- 
ence shows to be most workable in his partic- 
ular case. We should not slavishly follow 
the plans of others, although presumably we 
may learn something from the methods of 
every genuine man of prayer. A plan which 
is the product of our own faith and experi- 
mentation should not be irksome. Many 
have heard of that wonderful Chinese Chris- 
tian, Ding Li-mei, famous as an evangelist 
and even more as a man whose attractive 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 241 

character and conduct constitute a convin- 
cing evidence of the life of Christ in man. In 
recent years he has influenced the largest 
number of students to devote their lives to 
the Christian ministry ever secured by one 
man during the history of the Church in Asia. 
Those who know him best will say that 
the dynamic secret of his life is the central 
place which he gives to intercession. The 
last time I saw him he had recorded in a book 
the names of many hundreds of individual 
Christians from all parts of the world for 
whom he prayed day by day. In traveling 
with him from Shanghai to Dairen on our 
way to the conference in Mukden, I observed 
that he spent hours alone, either walking on 
the deck, or seated with this book open in his 
hand. Mr. Brockman says that the Student 
Volunteer Movement of China is the product 
of this man's prayers. 

Some find it useful to employ mechanical 
devices to help keep before them the needs 
and opportunities for intercession. Photo- 
graphs of friends and workers for whom we 
should pray may serve as prayer reminders. 



242 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

The map of the world on my working table 
has often helped extend the range and make 
more concrete the world-embracing sphere 
of prayer. If experience shows that a card 
index or other system is useful in bringing 
to mind our duties in executive work, 
why not avail ourselves of similar helps on 
this highest level of personal responsibility? 
We should be on our guard, however, lest 
such devices fetter our prayer-life or make it 
mechanical. 

In view of the alarmingly small number of 
intercessors, and the insistent need for the 
work which they can do, the most important 
question of all to consider is, How multiply 
the number of intercessors? This work of 
increasing the volume of intercession has 
not received the attention it deserves, al- 
though the experience of all the centuries 
clearly points the path. Ministers and lay- 
men who can speak with reality and from 
actual experience should give addresses and 
talks on the subject of intercessory prayer. 
Here we have in mind not dissertations on the 
grounds of prayer, nor on the reflex benefits 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 243 

of prayer, important as are these phases of 
the subject, but on that aspect of prayer 
which occupies itself with bringing definite 
help to other men and enterprises. Addresses 
on this subject, born out of sincere efforts to 
practise what is enjoined upon others, will 
have contagious power. 

Wide but careful use should be made of the 
best literature on the subject. Pamphlets 
and books by such men as Andrew Murray, 
Dean Bosworth, Robert E. Speer and the late 
Professor Gustav Warneck should be pressed 
upon the attention of each succeeding gener- 
ation. There is much on this vital subject 
that will reward one's reading in the reports 
of Commission I, Commission IV, and Com- 
mission VI, of the World Missionary Con- 
ference. 

Christians as they meet from time to time 
should interchange experiences concerning 
the habits and conditions most favorable for 
intercession and the achievements of inter- 
cessory prayer. Great care should be exercised 
to limit the speaking at such a meeting to 
those who will present the subject with that 



244 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

reasonableness, sanity and restraint which 
characterize those who are reflecting real 
experience. 

One of the best means of promoting inter- 
cession is that of laying before men objects 
which are so important and so immediate in 
their claims that men will realize that they 
must pray. This can be accomplished by 
writing letters devoted exclusively to the 
subject. An even better plan, where prac- 
ticable, is an interview for the express purpose 
of enlisting prayer. If time is well spent in 
personally asking for gifts of money and 
service, is it not even more important to fol- 
low this plan in order to call forth interces- 
sion? 

Group meetings of Christians during 
religious conventions or in every-day life for 
the sole purpose of united prayer for objects 
of common concern will serve as training 
schools and propagating centers of interces- 
sion. This has been illustrated in times of 
actual crisis in all parts of the world. Once 
when visiting a Scandinavian university 
a most serious situation confronted us in a 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 245 

series of special religious meetings. During 
the meeting, on which apparently everything 
hinged, a number of earnest Christians 
quietly withdrew and devoted themselves the 
entire evening to special prayer. It was, 
therefore, no surprise to me to see the walls 
of opposition fall before our eyes. 

One of the encouraging facts of our day is 
the increase among workers of the practice of 
holding retreats. There is incalculable value 
in the going apart of men to whom have been 
entrusted responsibilities beyond their own 
strength, that they may cultivate a larger 
acquaintance with God and yield themselves 
more fully to the ways of Christ for bringing 
to bear the power of God upon human life. 

We need to study the methods of Christ in 
training men; and, in this connection, there 
are no more impressive lessons than those 
which He taught His disciples by precept and 
by example in relation to prayer. It is a 
matter of regret that the book by Andrew 
Murray, "With Christ in the School of 
Prayer," is not so widely studied now as a few 
years ago. The truths there expounded are 



246 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

worthy the closest study. It would be even 
better to go, as he did, to the sources — the 
teaching and example of Christ Himself. 
No man can do this persistently and obe- 
diently without going forth a changed man. 
We often say that one of the most far-reaching 
things Christ ever did was to train a little 
band of men, but we do not act as though we 
believed what we say. If we did believe it 
more of us would be sharing our thought and 
experiences with others and associating our- 
selves with them in actual intercession. This 
would multiply the number of intercessors 
in a truly Christlike way. 

Above all, we ourselves must be burdened 
with a sense of the transcendent importance 
of increasing the number of men who will 
seek to release the power of God by prayer. 
The sufficient proof that we are thus bur- 
dened is what we do in our own secret hour 
of intercession. Mr. Moody used to say, "A 
man is what he is in the dark." We may test 
the strength and the purity of our desire and 
motive by what we do where God alone sees 
us. If there be genuineness and reality 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 247 

there, God will have His opportunity to break 
out through us, and our experience as inter- 
cessors will become truly contagious. Are 
men moved to pray as a result of conscious 
or unconscious touch with our lives? No 
more searching question could be addressed 
to us. By the answer we give in our inmost 
souls, and by the steps which we take as a 
result of that answer, will be measured not 
only the quality but also the outreach of our 
lives. 

There is greater need to-day than ever be- 
fore of relating the limitless power of united 
intercession to the missionary enterprise. A 
time of unexampled opportunity and crisis 
like the present is one of grave danger. There 
never has been a time when simultaneously 
in so many non-Christian lands the facts of 
need and opportunity presented such a re- 
markable appeal to Christendom as now. In 
every conference throughout Asia I was 
charged by those who have penetrated most 
deeply into the heart of the problems to press 
upon the Missionary Societies the imperative 
need of more intercession; above all, of 



248 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 

united intercession. In no way can those of 
us who are responsibly related to the mis- 
sionary forces better, in fact in no way can 
we so well, serve the deepest interests of all 
the Societies, Missions, and Churches as by 
multiplying the number of real intercessors, 
and by focussing the prayers of Christendom 
upon those great situations, wonderful open- 
ings, grave crises, alarming perils and re- 
markable movements which demand the al- 
mighty working of the Spirit of God. This 
is fundamental and central to everything else 
we are called upon to do. Far more impor- 
tant and vital than any service we may ren- 
der in the realm of promoting the science, 
strategy, efficiency, statesmanship, leader- 
ship and unification of the vast and complex 
missionary enterprise, is that of helping to 
release the superhuman energies of prayer, 
and, through uniting in this holy ministry 
true intercessors of all lands and of all com- 
munions, of helping to usher in a new era 
abounding in signs and wonders characteris- 
tic of the working of the living Christ. We 
should be on our guard lest we devote a dis- 



WHERE TO PLACE CHIEF EMPHASIS 249 

proportionate amount of time and thought to 
investigation and discussion and to plans for 
the utilization of available human forces, and 
not enough attention to what is immeasur- 
ably more important — the relating of what 
we do personally and corporately to the foun- 
tain of divine life and energy. The Christian 
world has the right to expect from the leaders 
of the missionary forces not only a more thor- 
ough handling of the facts and methods, but 
also a larger discovery of superhuman re- 
sources and a greater irradiation of spiritual 
power. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Africa, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 13, 15, 
19, 33, 62, 68, 69, 73, 102, 
104, 105, 112, 113, 114, 117, 
118, 119, 121, 128, 132, 137, 
149, 187, 207 

Alford, Dean, referred to, 237 

Allier, Prof. R., referred to, 32 

American Association for In- 
ternational Conciliation, 139 

Anderson, Rufus, referred to, 
74 

Apologetics, 63, 201 

Arabia, 213, 218 

Asia, 3, 8, 12, 15, 19, 27, 30, 68, 
75, 102, 105, 107, 112, 113, 
114, 115, 118, 121, 128, 132, 
136, 156, 177, 182, 184, 190, 
193, 195, 198, 201, 202, 207, 
213, 247 

Australasia, 4, 8, 137, 187 

Azariah, Bishop V. S., referred 
to, 39, 223 

Banurji, Kali Charan, referred 
to, 223 

Bible, distribution of, 154, 218; 
influence of, 219, 221; study 
of, 218, 221; translation of, 
154 

Boards of Missionary Prepara- 
tion, 191, 196 

Bombay, Bishop of, referred 
to, 164 

Bosworth, E. I., referred to, 243 

Bradlaugh, Charles, referred 
to, 114 



Brent, Bishop Charles H., re- 
ferred to, 129 

Brewer, Justice, referred to, 
122 

Brockman, F. S., referred to, 
241 

Bryan, William J., referred to, 
136 

Bryce, Lord, quoted, 107, 122; 
referred to, 136 

Buddhism, 40, 41, 116, 117 

Buddhist missionaries, 41 

Buddhist students, in Ceylon, 
41; in India, 37, 41, 239 

Burma, work among the stu- 
dents of, 40 

Canton, evangelistic campaign 

among students in, 48 
Carey, William, referred to, 39 
Carnegie Endowment for In- 
ternational Peace, 139 
Cecil, Lord William, quoted, 

116 
Ceylon, 39, 40, 41; work among 

students of, 40 
Chacko, K. C, referred to, 223 
Chalmers, Dr. James, quoted, 

121 
Chang Po-ling, referred to, 222 
China, 4, 13, 27, 46, 48, 49, 50, 
51, 54, 63, 65, 67, 69, 77, 83, 
88, 90, 102, 103, 110, 111, 
112, 114, 116, 128, 137, 149, 
153, 155, 186, 187, 189, 192, 
200, 210, 222; unification of 



253 



254 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



Christian literature societies 
in, 200; work among stu- 
dents of, 46 

China Medical Missionary As- 
sociation, convention of, 199 

Christian Endeavor Society, 
154 

Christian fellowship, promo- 
tion of, 168 

Christian literature, 66; in 
China, 200; in India, 200; in 
Japan, 66; in Russia, 26; in 
Turkey, 32; preparation and 
circulation of, 154 

Christianity, present oppor- 
tunity for spread of, 3; re- 
cent unparalleled triumphs 
of, 14; world-wide spread of, 
10 

Christians, capacities of pres- 
ent-day, 5, 74 

Church federation, 155 

Church history, study of, 88, 
193 

Church Peace Union, 139 

Churches for Anglo-American 
Communities in Mission 
Fields, Committee on Pro- 
viding, 132 

Churches on the mission field, 
building up of, 217 

Cigarettes, free distribution of, 
in China, 111 

Comity, principles of, observed, 
153 

Commercial expansion, 97 

Commercial representatives in 
non-Christian lands, 146 

Communication, improved 
means of, 5, 101 

Conferences of Mission Boards, 
86, 156 

Conferences on Faith and 
Order, 163, 192 



Confucian reaction, 186 

Congo, 105, 113 

Continuation Committee, 179, 
195; creation of, 156; special 
committees of, 87, 190, 191, 
194, 196, 198 

Continuation Committee Con- 
ferences in Asia, 177, 178, 
182, 183, 190, 195, 197, 202, 
247; in India, 64, 184, 239; in 
Japan, 185 

Co-operation and unity, as ex- 
hibited in missions, 153; 
between Churches, 73; be- 
tween Missions, 73; con- 
ference on, in January, 1914, 
203; discussed at Edinburgh 
Conference, 70; importance 
of, 158; in distribution, 
publication and translation 
of the Scriptures, 154; lack 
of, 159 

Cosmopolitan Club, 144 

Curzon, Lord, quoted, 87; re- 
ferred to, 75 

Darwin, Charles, quoted, 112 
Denominational differences of 

the West, 159 
DeQuincey, Thomas, referred 

to, 221 
Ding Li-mei, referred to, 222, 

240 
"Domiciled communities," 133 
Drink evil, in Africa, 112; in 

Asia, 111; in Moslem lands, 

111 
Duff, Alexander, quoted, 77; 

referred to, 87 



Eclecticism, 14, 37 
Eddy, Sherwood, referred to, 
25, 32, 37, 54 



INDEX 



255 



Education, inadequacy of as 
bulwark of morals, 9, 10 

Educational missions, oppor- 
tunity of, 65 

Edwardes, Sir Herbert, referred 
to, 136 

Egypt, 34; work among stu- 
dents of, 33, 34 

Eliot, Charles W., referred to, 
139 

Eliot, Sir Charles, referred to, 
136 

Emerson, R. W., quoted, 90, 
219 

Far East, 3, 19, 42, 65, 111, 
112, 114, 115, 134, 135, 212 

Farquhar, J. N., referred to, 79 

Foochow, evangelistic cam- 
paign among students in, 54 

Forbes, W. Cameron, referred 
to, 135 

Foreign students in American 
colleges, 140 

Fraser, Donald, referred to, 223 

Gairdner, W. H. T., referred 

to, 36 
German Africa, illegitimate 

children in, 113 
Gibson, Dr. J. C, referred to, 

88,90 
Gladstone, William E., referred 

to, 91, 134 
Gold Coast, 112 

Haeckel, Ernst H., referred to, 

114 
Harada, President, referred to, 

78 
Harnack, Adolph, referred to, 

216 
Hart, Sir Robert, referred to, 9 
Hawaiian Islands, 137 



Hay, John, referred to, 134 
Hindu students, in India, 36, 

37, 39, 239 
Hinduism, 105, 111, 184 
Huxley, Thomas H., referred 

to, 114 

Immorality, increase of, in 
Near East and Far East, 
112; traceable to Western 
influence, 112 

India, 4, 29, 36, 37, 39, 40, 64, 
68, 69, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 88, 
105, 108, 116, 133, 136, 155, 
170, 188, 189, 200, 216, 223, 
225, 239; unification of 
Christian literature societies 
in, 200; work among stu- 
dents of, 36 

Individual work for individu- 
als, 215 

Ingersoll, Robert G., referred 
to, 114 

Interdenominationalism vs. un- 
denominationalism, 164 

Internationalism, 100 

Ishii, J., referred to, 222 

Japan, 9, 27, 43, 49, 63, 66, 68, 
78, 82, 88, 103, 111, 115, 116, 
137, 149, 155, 183, 184, 185, 
189, 200, 218, 223; Christian 
Student Movement in, 44; 
conference of leaders of 
different religions in, 9; uni- 
fication of Christian litera- 
ture societies in, 66; work 
among students of, 43 

Japan Society, 139 

Jordan, David Starr, referred 
to, 139 

Kikuchi, Baron, referred to, 
139 



256 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



Korea, 42, 43, 111, 153, 216, 
222; work among students of, 
42 

Latin America, 3, 12, 102, 115, 
128, 132, 140, 207 

Lawrence, Dr. Edward A., re- 
ferred to, 88 

Lawrence, Lord, referred to, 
136 

Lawrence, Sir Henry M., re- 
ferred to, 136 

Laymen's Missionary Move- 
ment, 147, 156 

Lebanon, 29, 219 

Levant, 102, 103 

Lincoln, Abraham, referred to, 
80 

Livingstone, David, referred 
to, 129 

Literati in China, 46, 47, 48 

Literature, Christian, 66; co- 
operation in production of, 
202; in Russia, 26; in Turkey, 
32; spread of antichristian, 
114, 201 

Literature societies, unification 
of, in China, 200; in India, 
200; in Japan, 66 

Mabie, Hamilton W., referred 

to, 139 
Mackay, Alexander, referred 

to, 77 
Madras, Archbishop of, quoted, 

170 
Madras, Bishop of, referred to, 

82, 184 
Manchuria, 51, 53, 216; work 

among students of, 51 
Marshall, John, quoted, 83 
Mass movement in India, 64 
McLeod, Donald, referred to, 

224 



Medical missions, opportunity 
for, 66, 67 

Medici, Lorenzo de, referred to, 
10 

Mexico, 153 

Missionaries, number of Prot- 
estant, 71; training of, 71 

Missionary Education Move- 
ment, 156 

Missionary homes, influence 
of, 129; open to foreign 
young men, 133 

Mohammedan students, in 
Cairo, 33, 35; in Con- 
stantinople, 27, 28, 31; in 
India, 36, 37, 39, 239 

Mohammedanism, 4, 35, 105, 
111, 184, 213 

Montaigne, Michel E. de, 
referred to, 219 

Moody, D. L., quoted, 246 

Morley, Lord, quoted, 81, 91 

Mukden, conference in, 241; 
evangelistic campaign among 
students in, 51 

Murray, Andrew, referred to, 
243, 245 

Nationalism, rising tides of, 11 
Near East, 3, 19, 65, 112, 114, 

115, 116, 219 
Nevius, Dr. J. L., referred to, 

77 
Nicolai, Archbishop, referred 

to, 223 
Nicolay, Baron Paul, referred 

to, 25 
Nietzsche, F. W., referred to, 

114 
Nigeria, 112 
Nile Valley, 4, 29 
Nitobe, Inazo, referred to, 139 
Non-Christian civilizations, 

cancerous growths of, 13 



INDEX 



257 



Non-Christian lands, peoples 
of, accessible and responsive, 
19,54 

Occupation, co-operation in, 
70; enlargements of plans 
of, 60; of unoccupied fields, 
72; problem of, 180; what is 
meant by adequate, 179 

Okuma, Count, quoted, 115, 
116; referred to, 137 

Opium, 110, 112, 129 

Oriental immigrants, number 
of, in United States, 136; re- 
lation to, 137; work for, 136 

Outcastes, policy for reaching, 
64 

Oxford, Bishop of, quoted, 163 

Pacific Islands, 3, 107, 112, 114, 

153, 160 
Pan-American Union, 139 
Parsee students, in India, 37 
Patriotism, racial, 11 
Paul, K. T., referred to, 79 
Peabody, Professor Francis, 

quoted, 219; referred to, 139 
Peking, evangelistic campaign 

among students in, 51 
Periodicals, missionary, need 

for, 88 
Persia, referred to, 102 
Peru, referred to, 106 
Philippine Islands, referred 

to, 135 
Pitt, William, referred to, 82 
Preaching as a vital method, 

216 
Putumayo atrocities, 106 

Races, amalgamation of, 8; 

segregation of, 7 
Racial contact, 6, 7, 8, 69, 97, 

98, 100, 110, 139 



Ramsay, Sir William, referred 
to, 76 

Reconciliation, apostles of, 172 

Restraints of non-Christian 
civilization broken down, 1 15 

Robert College, 210 

Roosevelt, Col. Theodore, 
quoted, 26; referred to, 136 

Root, Elihu, referred to, 136 

Rouse, Miss Ruth, referred to, 
25 

Russia, 20, 21, 23, 26, 29; 
agnostics among, 23; in 
zone of power, 26; Student 
Christian Movement in, 25; 
tendency toward suicide 
among students of, 22; work 
among students of, 20 

St. Paul, as a statesman, 75 
Schopenhauer, Arthur, referred 

to, 114 
Scriptures, see Bible 
Selwyn, Bishop, quoted, 160 
Sierra Leone, referred to, 112 
Smith, George Adam, quoted, 

224; sermon by, 234 
Spectator, of London, quoted, 

59 
Speer, Robert E., quoted, 148; 

referred to, 243 
Spencer, Herbert, referred to, 

114 
Stamboul, Moslem University 

in, 30 
Statesmanship, shown by 
vision, 75, 76; by ability to 
grasp, define and apply cor- 
rect governing principles, 77; 
by recognizing and observing 
relationships, 78; by capac- 
ity to select and guide men, 
80; by sympathy and imag- 
ination, 80; by understand- 



258 THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



ing of the times, 82; by wis- 
dom in planning, 82; by- 
profiting from knowledge 
and experience of others, 83; 
by judgment, 84; develop- 
ment of, 84-92 

Statesmen, missionary, char- 
acteristics of, 75; examples 
of, 74; needed to enlarge 
plans, 59; to improve mis- 
sionary strategy, 61; to 
develop evangelistic work, 
62; to establish indigenous 
Churches, 64; to meet the 
educational opportunity, 65; 
to produce and distribute 
Christian literature, 66; to 
create the medical profession 
for non-Christian world, 66; 
to help solve social problems, 
67; to help solve racial prob- 
lems, 69 ; to guide the move- 
ment toward co-operation 
and unity, 69; to ensure 
better training of mission- 
aries, 71; to work out plans 
of occupation, 72; to bring 
about helpful relations be- 
tween Mission Boards and 
leaders on the field, 73; as 
leaders at the home base, 
73 

Stewart, Dr. James, quoted, 
121 

Strategy in distribution of 
forces, 62 

Student Christian Movement, 
187, 188; among foreign stu- 
dents in Christian lands, 141 ; 
in Japan, 44; in Russia, 25; 
in Turkey, 33; spread of, 128 

Student Volunteer Movement 
for Foreign Missions, 156, 
187; watchword of, 170 



Student Volunteer Movement 
of China, 187, 241 

Students, foreign, accessible, 
141; foreign, in American 
colleges, 140; migration of, 
98, 140; Oriental, number of, 
studying in America, 140 

Sudan, 105 

Sunday School Union, 154 

Surveys of fields called for, 178, 
182 

Syncretism, 14 

Taylor, J. Hudson, as a states- 
man, 83; referred to, 72, 222 

Tientsin, evangelistic campaign 
among students in, 54 

Tokyo, Imperial University 
in, 45 

Training of missionaries, 71 

Transcendence, process of, 166 

Tsinanfu, evangelistic cam- 
paign among students in, 49 

Turkey, 4, 13, 27, 28, 29, 32, 
33, 69, 107, 128, 149; Chris- 
tian Student Movement in, 
33; work among students of, 
27 



Union colleges and universi- 
ties, 197 

Union hospitals, 199 

Union language schools, 190 

Union medical schools, 197, 
199 

Union of International Asso- 
ciations, 99 

Union theological colleges, 
need for, 188 

United Church of South India, 
155 

Unity, Church, 155 

Unity, see Co-operation 



INDEX 



259 



Universal Day of Prayer for 

Students, 50 
"Untouchables," 64, 82 

Vatican, 75 

Venn, Henry, referred to, 74 

Verbeck, Dr. Guido, referred 

to, 78 
Voltaire, referred to, 114 

Warneck, Prof. Gustav, re- 
ferred to, 82, 243 
Washington, George, referred 

to, 76, 83 
Western civilization, corrupt 

influences of, 12, 60, 102, 

110; unchristian aspects of, 

147 
Wilder, Consul-general A. P., 

referred to, 135 
Wilder, Robert P., referred 

to, 32 
Williams, S. Wells, referred 

to, 135 
Wilson, President Woodrow, 

referred to, 135 
Woman's movement, influence 

of, 117 
World Conference on Faith 

and Order, 163 
World Missionary Conference 

in Edinburgh, 1910, 70, 71, 



115, 156, 163, 171, 181; re- 
port of Commissions of, 243; 
work of Commissions of, 86, 
226 

World Peace Foundation, 139 

World Student Christian Fed- 
eration, Conference of 1907, 
44; of 1913, 26; in Con- 
stantinople, 28; reception of 
Russian Movement into, 26 

World situation, unprece- 
dented in opportunity, 3; 
in danger, 5; in urgency, 11, 
14 

Wreda, Baroness, referred to, 
223 

York, Archbishop of, referred 
to, 164 

Young, Dr. John C, of Arabia, 
quoted, 213 

Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation, 131, 154; in Shang- 
hai, 141 

Young, Sir Mackworth, re- 
ferred to, 136 

Young Women's Christian As- 
sociation, 154 

Yun Chi-ho, referred to, 222 

Zwemer, S. M., referred to, 36 



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